by Anne Stuart
“Why would we want to do that?”
“I’m not a psychologist; I can’t explain the workings of your mind, dear boy,” George said lightly. “Why would you want to sabotage dear Carolyn’s car and then bring her away with you? And when your uncle came after you to try and stop you, you murdered him in cold blood. Who can explain that, any more than the fact that you burned the Edgartown house to the ground? I’ll be at a loss, when they bring me the news at my mother’s bedside. We’ll all be distraught with grief.” He smiled sweetly.
“Don’t you think burning the house was a little drastic? I assume you’re doing this for money, but whatever the insurance, the house was still worth more.”
“Ah, but you know perfectly well you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. I thought Uncle Warren understood that much.” They had reached the top of the rise now, and the sun was coming up on the horizon, sending glorious arcs of light through the inky sky.
“George,” Carolyn said softly. “I still don’t understand why you would want to hurt us. Is the money that important? You have so much.”
“One can never have too much, Carolyn. You always were pathetically naive. My lifestyle is extremely expensive, you know. But you’re right, that’s not the real reason.”
“And what is the real reason?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m sure Alex has figured it out. You’re not real MacDowells. You’re a bastard, he’s a changeling. Neither of you belong in the family, neither of you deserve even a penny of the money my ancestors built up over generations. You’re imposters, both of you. I’ve known it since I was a child—I told you I had a habit of watching and listening. I always knew I’d have to get rid of Alex sooner or later, and when he caught me enjoying my mother’s little peccadilloes it seemed as good a time as any. I wasn’t sure I’d have to do anything about you, but Warren was getting sentimental in his old age. He warned me not to touch you. Up until then I had no intention of doing anything, but such parental concern was far too dangerous.” He halted. They were at the head of the steep cliffs. Below them were rocks, with the sea pouring in around them, and off to the left, bathed in the rosy glow of dawn, was the Gay Head Lighthouse. “Time to jump, children. You can hold hands while you do it.”
“And what if we don’t jump?” Alex said. “You’d have a hard time explaining bullet holes in our bodies, now wouldn’t you?”
“Not particularly. You’ll wash out to sea. By the time they find you there probably won’t be enough to identify you, much less tell how you died. It’s a chance I’m willing to take if you don’t cooperate. The sea spat you out once. I doubt it will give you up again.” It was windy on the headlands, and overhead seagulls screeched and whirled in the brightening day. Carolyn put up a hand to push the hair out of her face, and in the distance she thought she could hear the sound of a car.
George heard it too. “Someone’s coming,” he said pleasantly. “Who wants to go first?” The roar of an aging motor burst over the hillside, as headlights speared the twilight, illuminating them like a biblical tableau, coming faster than she ever imagined. George froze, like a deer caught in a poacher’s light, as the old truck bore down on him at a fiendish speed. And with sudden shrieking despair, Carolyn knew who was driving.
“Get down!” Alex shouted, grabbing her around the waist and throwing her to the rocky precipice, covering her body with his, covering her ears with his strong hands, pressing her face against his shoulder.
He couldn’t block out the sound, or the truth. The stolen truck slammed into George’s body as it went soaring over the cliff, tumbling over and over until it crashed onto the rocks below and burst into flames. And Carolyn could see his face, Warren’s pale, determined face, as he plowed into George’s body and took them both to their death below.
Slowly Alex untangled himself from her, climbing to his feet like an old man. He held out a hand for her, but she turned her head away, refusing to move. He walked to the edge of the cliff and looked down for long, countless minutes.
The sun had risen. Overhead the seagulls circled and cried, in the distance came the sound of a police siren. And inside Carolyn’s heart, something bloomed and died.
Chapter Twenty-four
HE WAS GONE. Five days later he was gone, without a word to her. She knew the lies he’d spun for the police, and she’d gone along with them, numbly obedient. It didn’t matter why he lied, it only mattered that he hadn’t come near her, hadn’t touched her, since the police had arrived on that rocky outcropping and taken them both away.
She moved through life in a daze. Sally was buried with pomp and circumstance, Warren was buried beside her. George was a different matter—his service was small and private, with only his two sisters in attendance. Patsy’s latest drug overdose had shut off the oxygen to her brain long enough to cause damage, and she had retreated to a pleasant, hazy world of television soap operas and vodka and round-the-clock nursing care.
And Alex was gone. Alex, who told the police he was an imposter, that the real Alexander MacDowell had been killed by his cousin George eighteen years ago. It had been an elaborate yet simple tale, so believable that Carolyn began to doubt herself. Warren had sought him out, trying to expose his murderous nephew. And he’d left enough of a paper trail to prove that Samuel Kinkaid was just who he said he was. An expatriate drifter.
The months passed, spring into summer, summer into fall, and there was still no escape for Carolyn. Most of the MacDowells were gone now, but she was still tied to the house, the family. Patsy was settled into Sally’s old rooms, and if she occasionally remembered that she had had a son the thought passed quickly, lost in a haze of fantasy and drugs.
For some stupid reason Carolyn kept expecting Alex to return. To suddenly show up in her room in the middle of the night, to turn up on the front doorstep as he had that wintry morning, setting everything on end. But he didn’t. And as the first snow began to fly, Carolyn knew she couldn’t wait any longer.
Of all the myriad lawyers the MacDowell family had employed, Carolyn trusted Gerald Townsend the most. He’d gently guided her through the complexities of the wills, respecting her need for distance, and she’d counted on him to make the right choices. They’d never discussed what had happened, merely talked in polite tones about funds and money markets and trusts.
But it was finally time for her to leave.
“I wondered when you’d get around to asking questions,” the elderly man said gently when she walked into the library of the Vermont house. She’d offered to come to his office, but he’d insisted on coming to her. Clients as important as the MacDowells deserved special treatment, he’d insisted, and she hadn’t bothered to argue.
“I don’t have questions,” she said. “I just want access to my trust fund so I can get out of here. Everything else is taken care of, isn’t it? There’s nothing else I need to do?”
“Nothing else you need to do,” he said. “You’re free. That’s what you wanted to hear, isn’t it? I told Sally she should have let you go years ago, but she was a possessive old woman, and she loved you dearly.”
“I wouldn’t have left her,” she said.
“No, I expect you wouldn’t.” He sighed. “This entire business has been very distressing.”
“Yes,” she said dryly. “It has.”
“I don’t understand how that young man could turn his back on so much money,” he said.
“He wasn’t Alex.” She said the lie by rote.
“Don’t be absurd; we both know that he was. But he was absolutely adamant that he wouldn’t take a penny of the MacDowell money, and now he can’t change his mind. Not that he seemed likely to, or I would have built some sort of fail-safe into the agreements. It’s out of his reach now, and he seems absurdly glad of it.”
She jerked her head up. “You’ve been in touch with him?”
“Well, of course. I’ve needed his cooperation to make certain the legal aspects are taken care of. I also arranged for him to buy a little place on Martha’s Vineyard, though given the circumstances I wouldn’t have thought he’d ever want to come to the island again.”
“The Robinson house,” Carolyn said, a statement, not a question.
“Exactly. Though I can, perhaps, guess why.”
“Where is he now?”
“Italy. He owns a place in a small village in Tuscany, I believe. At least, that’s where he’s been getting his mail.”
“And how does he support himself?”
“I believe he started a small company when he was in his twenties that he sold for a tidy profit. He does what interests him. Not that his assets are anywhere near the MacDowells’ in size, or yours for that matter, but people have different needs.”
She stared at him in sudden surprise. “Mine? Sally was very generous with my trust fund, but it was a comfortable amount, just to supplement my income.”
It was his turn to look surprised. “My dear child, haven’t you been paying any attention to the legal work we’ve been doing these last six months?”
“No.”
“With Alex MacDowell declared dead, Sally’s estate, after minor bequests to you and the various servants, was evenly divided between her brother and her sister.”
“I know that.”
“And didn’t you realize you were Warren’s sole heir?”
She looked at him in shock. “I can’t be.”
“I assure you, you’ve signed papers acknowledging that fact. He made his will more than a decade ago. He was a good friend of mine, Carolyn, and despite his lapses he wasn’t a man devoid of responsibility. His sizable estate, coupled with half of Sally’s, comes to a very healthy sum of money.” He hesitated. “I imagine young Mr. Kinkaid was well aware of that fact.”
“He knew I was heir to all that?”
“He knew.”
“And he left.”
“Yes,” said Townsend. “I’m certain he’s quite happy in Tuscany. I gather Citté-del-Monte is a lovely little village, though it can be quite difficult to get to if you don’t know the way. Fortunately, he was obliging enough to give me detailed instructions in case of emergency.”
“How very fortunate,” she said in a hushed voice.
“Perhaps I ought to pass those instructions along to you, just in case you might need them,” the old man said, all sweet innocence. “I hadn’t wanted to mention it before—you were in such shock after those terrible events in May, and I imagine Mr. Kinkaid needed some time as well. But I’m sure there’s no harm in passing along the information at this late date. After all, what possible use could you put it to?” His kind smile was painfully paternal, and she found she had tears in her eyes as she smiled back at him.
“What possible use?” she echoed.
MR. TOWNSEND WAS right, Citté-del-Monte was almost impossible to find. Even with the lawyer’s detailed instructions she managed to get lost three times on the winding country roads. By the time she drove her tiny little rented Fiat up the narrow road leading to the tumbledown villa, she was numb with exhaustion and fear.
She had no idea what she’d say to him. Maybe just good-bye. He’d left without that much; he’d left knowing she loved him. She deserved something, if only a polite farewell.
Even in the autumn it was a tangle of overgrown greenery. The stucco farmhouse was in the midst of repair—she could see the new roof, smell fresh lumber. In the distance she could hear the sound of hammering, and a laughing male voice.
She climbed out of the car, leaving her bags behind, walking on the uneven stones toward the house. And then she stopped, in sick, nameless horror, as a pretty, red-haired woman emerged from the front entry with a dark-haired baby on one ample hip.
“Can I help you?” she asked in a cheerful British voice.
Carolyn wanted to run. With all the lies, all the uncertainties, she’d never for one moment considered the possibility that he might be married. The woman stood there, welcoming, entirely at ease, and Carolyn wanted the ground to open up and swallow her.
“I . . . I must have made a wrong turn,” she said in a faintly desperate voice. “I was looking . . . looking for my cousin. He’s rented a villa around here.”
The woman’s pretty face creased in confusion. “I didn’t realize there were any other Americans around here. Let me check with my husband and see if he knows. What’s his name?”
“Don’t bother!” Carolyn said, backing away from her. “I probably have the wrong village. Maybe even the wrong country. I’m sorry to bother you.”
Too late she realized the hammering had stopped, and the male voices had grown nearer. She was almost at her car when Alex emerged from behind the house, shirtless, tanned, his hair too long, his face unshaven, his Cossack eyes bright with laughter. She couldn’t move, couldn’t tear her eyes from him.
He saw her, of course, immediately, and all the laughter fled from his face as he froze. The man beside him barreled into him, cursing and laughing beneath his breath.
“There you are,” the woman with the baby called out. “This woman has gotten lost. She’s looking for her cousin. Do you know of any other Americans around, Paolo?”
The second man shook his head. “No, cara. Just this mangy bastard here.” He moved around Alex’s frozen figure and planted a kiss on the woman’s cheek. “Are we staying for dinner?”
The British woman looked from Alex’s strange expression to Carolyn’s, and a smile curled her lips. “I don’t think so, darling. I think the young woman found what she was looking for, after all.” She handed him the baby. “Come along, darling.”
Carolyn didn’t even see them leave. There must have been another way into the tangled property, because suddenly they were gone, and Alex had made no move toward her.
“What are you doing here?”
He sounded more reserved than unwelcoming, but she was past the point of being sensitive. “It started to snow in Vermont and I knew I couldn’t stand another winter there. I thought she was your wife,” she said abruptly.
That startled him. “Anna? She’s married to Paolo. I’ve never been married. I told you that.”
“You told me a lot of things.”
A faint smile curved his lush mouth, the mouth that she remembered so well. “Yes, I did, didn’t I?”
“Why didn’t you take the money? Sally wanted you to have it.”
“Sally got her way too much in this life. It was blood money, and I didn’t need it.”
“What about me?”
He shrugged carelessly, but she could see beyond his studied indifference to something that made her palms sweat and her stomach twist in delectable knots. “I don’t know whether you need all that money or not. It’s up to you.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” she said. “You said you don’t need the money. Do you need me?”
He looked absolutely trapped. “Do I have to answer that?”
“Considering I came thousands of miles to ask the question, yes.”
She hadn’t realized he was moving closer. A slow, dangerous pace, and she realized he wasn’t the only one who was trapped—she was as well. Predator and prey, both of them.
He stopped in front of her, and his skin was smooth and silken in the bright Mediterranean sun, and she wanted to press her mouth against his throat. He cupped her neck, his big, strong hand, rough with calluses, gentle on her smooth skin. “I need you,” he said. “I can even put up with all that goddamn MacDowell money if I have to.”
He kissed her, a slow, deep, possessive kiss that was like the wellspring of life. When he pulled back there were tears on her cheeks and he smiled.
“Big of you,” she muttered.
“Very big,” he agreed. “I’m going to have to cancel my plane reservations. I was coming to get you next week.”
“Great minds think alike,” she said.
His hands were on her breasts, and all she wanted was to lie with him in the bright Tuscan sun. “I still haven’t told you,” he said.
“Told me what?”
“I’m in love with you. I have been since you were thirteen.”
“Pervert.” She smiled up at him and began unbuttoning her shirt. “Of course you are,” she said. “Did it take you this long to figure it out?”
“No,” he said. “I just had to give you enough time to make sure you knew what you’re doing.”
“At least we know you’re not marrying me for my money.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Who says I’m marrying you?”
“Are you?”
“As soon as I can find a priest,” he said. He pulled her into his arms. “And guess what?” His mouth hovered over hers, tempting. “What?” she echoed dazedly.
“It hardly ever snows in Tuscany.”
(Please continue reading for information about the author)
About the Author
Anne Stuart is currently celebrating forty years as a published novelist. She has won every major award in the romance field and appeared on the NYT Bestseller List, Publisher’s Weekly, and USA Today. Anne Stuart currently lives in northern Vermont.
