First Impressions

by Jude Deveraux

  For the first time since she’d arrived, Eden smiled—really smiled. It wasn’t a polite little grin; it was a big wide smile that involved her entire face. She’d missed this in the years since she’d left Arundel. Someone who knew her. Someone who liked the same things she did. In the years since she’d been away, it seemed that all the men she’d met had wanted her for what she could give them. Their attitude toward Melissa had been one of tolerance. They were willing to put up with a child, but they hadn’t really been interested in her. She’d been too quiet and withdrawn to interest them. In the end, it seemed that it always came down to having to choose between her daughter and some man. Eden had never hesitated in choosing her daughter.

  But now, for the first time since she was a teenager, Eden was alone—free, actually. It was difficult for her to remember a time when she wasn’t someone’s mother. When she was still a teenager, she’d seen kids her age jumping into convertibles as they ran off to spend the day at the beach. Sometimes she’d been nearly overwhelmed with envy. Never in her life had she spent an entire day at the beach. Her parents hadn’t believed in such frivolity, then she’d had the responsibility of a daughter. As for packing up Melissa and going by herself, that wasn’t something that Eden could quite manage to do.

  What she had done was throw herself into gardening. She’d spent her days in the garden, with Melissa never far away from her. Often, Mrs. Farrington had joined them, not to work (she couldn’t contemplate using a hoe) but to sit under a tree in a pretty wrought-iron chair and read things like the Declaration of Independence (which one of her ancestors had signed) to Melissa, Eden, and Toddy.

  Now, Brad was bringing back to Eden the memories of those wonderful days so vividly that she, well, she was feeling as though she was waking up. Design gardens? For a living? Get paid for doing something that she loved to do? When she’d put herself through college, it had been a small community college, and the choices of study had been limited. Garden design had not been offered. She’d taken courses that she thought would help her get a job as a teacher or in museum work or publishing. “Design gardens?” she said at last.

  “Yes, something like what’s at the Belltower House.”

  At that Eden’s eyes widened. “The Belltower House,” she said under her breath. It was one of the most beautiful houses ever built in the United States in the eighteenth century. In the 1950s it had been derelict but had been rescued by the local townspeople and restored beautifully. There had been a gasoline station in front of it, but that was torn down and in its place was put a reproduction of an eighteenth-century garden. No modern plants were allowed. It was gorgeous and accurate.

  “The people we’re aiming at with these houses are retired D.C. people. Power, brains, been everywhere and seen everything. We think that the historical aspect of the houses will appeal to them, and we thought that making the gardens look as historically accurate as the houses would also appeal to them. Of course the landscape company that’s been formed by some of the local kids would put in the gardens and later maintain them, so you wouldn’t have to do the digging.”

  “Local kids?”

  “Okay, so they’re adults and they’re Drakes, Mintons, and one Granville by marriage, namely my daughter’s worthless husband, but I think they can do the job. Maybe you could manage them. They all need direction.”

  She blinked at him. “If I’m understanding this clearly, you’re asking me to take over a landscaping company that has a contract, more or less, for two hundred houses.”

  “That’s about it.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Did you just come up with this idea or did you develop it a while ago?”

  His face lost its humor. “If you’re asking me if I’ve been wining and dining you in an attempt to get you to help with my new subdivision, the answer is no. But I’ll be honest with you: I am desperate for help. When you met my daughter, was she smiling?”

  “No.”

  “Her life is a mess right now. She married some big, good-looking kid from Louisiana in her last year of college and got pregnant right away. Actually, I think she was pregnant before, but that’s neither here nor there. She came home, and I saw right away that as soon as he saw the Granville house he planned to sit down and do nothing for the rest of his life. I gave him many lectures about how we all have to work for what we’ve managed to keep over the centuries, but nothing registered with him. He said that in Louisiana he helped his father do some landscaping. Between you and me I think he probably dug ditches. Anyway, at Camden’s crying requests I talked my partners into letting this moron become involved in the landscaping. He went out and hired the blackest of the black sheep in this town to work for him, and now he expects me to buy him half a million dollars’ worth of equipment and turn him loose on the gardens of all the houses. He doesn’t know a daisy from a liatris, so how can he put in gardens that look like something Thomas Jefferson might have enjoyed?”

  Brad put his hand over his eyes. “I tell you I’m caught in a three-way vise. I have my investors threatening me if Remi messes up. I have my daughter, who expects me to perform a miracle and make her talent-less husband into a great businessman, and I have this kid telling me he can’t do anything until I buy him half of John Deere.”

  Eden crossed her arms over her chest. “And just this minute you came up with the idea of turning this entire mess over to me and getting me to straighten it out?”

  Brad grinned at her. “Actually, that’s completely accurate. One hundred percent right on. I think you must be a mind reader.”

  In spite of herself, Eden laughed, and her body relaxed. “Your son-in-law is from Louisiana? Does he have one of ‘those’ accents?”

  “Sometimes I can hardly understand him. You wouldn’t really consider doing this, would you?” There was hope in his voice, but also a belief that it would never happen.

  “Let me think about it. You say the books are in my bedroom?”

  “With your notebooks. Do you think you could make up your mind by, say, ten o’clock tomorrow?”

  “What happens at ten?”

  “I’m to meet Remi at the John Deere dealer.”

  Again, Eden laughed. Family, she thought. All the problems of family. When she left Melissa and Stuart and the baby Melissa was about to have, Eden had thought she was saying good-bye to family. But here was an invitation to plunge into a family complete with squabbles and real problems. In this case, though, it looked a bit like diving headfirst into a swimming pool that she knew was empty.

  “Is the John Deere dealer still on Berkshire?”

  “Hasn’t moved since 1954.”

  “I’ll meet you there at ten tomorrow and talk to your son-in-law.”

  Brad grabbed both her hands in his. “I so appreciate this. You don’t know…” He stopped and smiled at her. “I’m not yet sure, but I think maybe everything Mrs. Farrington said about you was right.” He said the last very softly, and he had that unmistakable look on his face: he was about to kiss her.

  As he bent his head toward her, Eden stepped back and the moment was lost. When he kissed her for the first time, she wanted it to be from passion, not gratitude. She took her hands from his. “You better go. I’ll need to go through my books tonight and see…See what a fool I am if I even consider this.”

  “Yeah, okay,” he said, stepping back. He took his car keys out of his pocket. “Tomorrow.” He seemed to want to say more, but instead he turned and walked away. He looked back once and waved, then she heard his car start and saw the taillights as he drove down the driveway.

  Standing alone in the moonlit garden, Eden shivered. Moments ago, it had seemed very warm, but now she was cold. Hurriedly, she ran up the stairs and back into the house.

  It was utterly quiet inside, but she could feel the presence of another human being. McBride. Right now all she wanted to do was take a shower and settle down with her gardening books and think hard about Brad’s offer of a job. Could she do it? It had been year
s since she’d even read a gardening book. Could she remember all that she’d learned? Had she even learned enough to be able to design gardens from scratch? Plant heights, pH levels, bloom time, pruning—they all had to be considered. And then there was the entire eighteenth-century philosophy of design. They were complicated gardens. And would she be able to get along with Brad’s son-in-law, Remi? She’d never been able to get along with her own son-in-law, so how could she think of taking on someone else’s?

  She made herself a cup of tea and finished cleaning the kitchen while her thoughts tumbled on top of one another. When at last she was ready to go upstairs, she thought about staying downstairs and sleeping on the couch. Upstairs was Mr. McBride and the confrontation she wanted to avoid. When she’d moved him into her house she had good reasons, but right now she couldn’t remember one of them. Had she really wanted protection from Brad? She smiled at that idea. She was beginning to think that being protected from Mr. Braddon Norfleet Granville was the last thing she wanted.

  She stopped at the foot of the stairs and took a deep breath. Firm, she told herself. She had to be firm.

  Chapter Six

  EDEN flung open Jared McBride’s bedroom door. She didn’t care if she caught him in the nude. On the way up the stairs, she’d put strength in her spine, and she wasn’t going to waver in her resolve. “Mr. McBride,” she said, with her mouth in a hard line, “I want you out of my house now. This minute.”

  He was sitting on his bed, his arm in the sling on top of the covers, the scratch on his cheek clearly visible. His blackened eye seemed to have grown bigger and darker in the last few hours. If she hadn’t known differently, she would have thought he’d used makeup on it.

  “Yes, of course,” he said, then with grimaces of pain, he moved the cover off his legs and slowly got out of bed. “So you think Granville is all right, then?”

  “Of course he’s all right!” she snapped. “Contrary to what you’re insinuating, I don’t hurt people who come to my house by invitation.”

  He paused, his bare feet on the floor, his sweatpants pulled up to his calf. He had a bandage around his right ankle, and she could see what was clearly the oval pattern of teeth marks on his ankle.

  “I meant that you feel sure that there’s no danger he’ll hurt you,” he said softly. “Sorry for spying on you, but it’s the habit of an old policeman. Protection. I knew you didn’t know Granville and he was here alone with you, so I was concerned. You’re a beautiful woman and you wouldn’t believe the things that I’ve seen men get up to when they’re alone with a beautiful woman.”

  She knew he was lying; she could feel it in her bones. But no matter what was coming out of his mouth, his wounds were real—and they had been caused by her. As he stood up, the bite on his foot oozed blood. Closing her eyes for a moment, she tried to give herself strength, but it didn’t work. “All right. Get back in bed. You can stay here tonight.”

  “No,” he said tiredly. “You’re right. I should get back to my own house. It’s not right that a man should stay here alone with an unmarried woman.”

  At that she sat down on the chair by the wall. “Tell me, Mr. McBride, do you lie to everyone or is there something about me that brings out the worst in you?”

  “I have no idea what you mean,” he said as he hobbled toward the old dresser. She hadn’t been in this room since the house had become hers, but she saw that Mrs. Farrington’s son hadn’t taken all the good pieces. The chest was pine and looked country, but she knew it was worth a lot of money. For a moment she could see Mrs. Farrington’s smile. She’d managed to save some good pieces from the greed of her son, and Eden wondered what else was in the house.

  But first she had to deal with the nuisance of McBride. “I would like to know the truth about what you’re doing here in Arundel. Are you one of those treasure seekers? Are you looking for those lost jewels?”

  “Sorry, but I don’t know what you mean.” He was on one foot now, hopping to the chair by the bed where his shoes and socks were.

  “You’re no more a fisherman or a hunter than I am. Everything in your house is brand-new, as though you don’t want anyone to know who you are or where you came from.”

  “House fire. Burned everything,” he said quickly, and Eden was sure that he was smiling.

  “The night I saw you in this house you were snooping around. You weren’t looking for a fuse box. You were looking for something else. I called the electric company and they said that my lights are not on the same circuit as yours.”

  “It was a mistake. I thought they were together.” He was sitting on the chair, his hands folded on his lap, and he was looking at her expectantly.

  He’s enjoying this, she thought. Cat and mouse. But who was the cat and who was the mouse? “Where’s your table saw? I looked in your garage, and there’s nothing in there but a pickup truck. Brand-new. No table saw.”

  “Power handsaw. The deputy must have misunderstood. The circular saw is under the workbench.”

  “Shall we go look?”

  Ostentatiously, as though in enormous pain, he stood up, using the chair as support. “Yes, of course. Let’s go look now.”

  Eden threw up her hands in surrender. “Get back in bed,” she ordered. She knew she was being a wimp, knew that he was exaggerating his pain, but his foot was bleeding, courtesy of her teeth. “I guess you’re hungry,” she said in disgust.

  “No, ma’am, I can do without food,” he said meekly as he hobbled to the bed. “But I will take you up on your offer of hospitality for another night, and I promise that I’ll leave tomorrow.”

  “Good,” she said, and she left the room.

  Eden wanted to kick herself. The man had the ability to make her forget all that she’d planned to say to him. She went downstairs to the kitchen, got the soup out of the refrigerator, and heated a bowl of it. She put leftover salad into another bowl, poured a big glass of sweet tea, then also poured him a glass of wine. He was probably taking pain medications so the wine would knock him out. At least she’d have one night without his snooping.

  She carried the tray up to him, cursing herself every step of the way. He was back in bed, his head lolling around as though he were at death’s door. She put the tray on the end of the bed and turned to leave.

  “Did you have a nice night?”

  “No thanks to you,” she spat at him. Then, in spite of her best intentions, she turned on him. “How could you spy on us like that? Who do you think you are that you can snoop around my house with a flashlight, then lie to the police so that they believe every word you say? Do you know that they made fun of me? I come home to find a strange man in my house, I defend myself, yet I am made a laughingstock in this small town. I will never be able to live this down. Do you know what my life is going to be like because of you? I can’t understand why they believed you and not me.”

  When he said nothing, she made her hands into fists and turned to leave the room.

  “FBI,” he said, his mouth full.

  She stopped where she was, then slowly turned back to him. “What?”

  “I’m FBI. The sheriff knows that. If he hadn’t been told who I was, I’d have been thrown in jail until I rotted. People around here like you, something about your being ‘one of them.’ I hope that doesn’t mean you’re part of some cult that we’ll eventually have to clean out. We lose too many men in those raids.”

  Eden was standing in the doorway, her mouth open, her eyes wide, too stunned to move.

  “Your sheriff told me what he thought of me before he put out the story that I was a great hero and that you were a dingbat Yankee. Do I have that right? It seems that down here being a Yankee is worse than being a serial killer. Certainly worse than being an FBI agent working on a case. I think that if it had been up to your sheriff he would have put a few bullet holes in me to add to the bite wounds. You better sit down before you faint. Here.” He held up the glass of wine. “I think you need this. I can’t drink this with those pills th
e doctor gave me or I’ll pass out. Or was that your intention?” He took another slurp of soup and stopped talking.

  Eyes wide, Eden walked across the room and took the wine from him, drinking it in one long chug. When she’d finished, she sat down on the end of his bed. “Why would the FBI be interested in me? There are no jewels.”

  He gestured with a piece of French bread. “I don’t know anything about any jewels, but it sounds like a good story. Maybe you’ll tell me about it sometime. If you can get away from lover boy, that is. How long have you known Granville?”

  “None of your business,” she said, looking at him. The wine was giving her courage. “I want to know why you’re here and what you want.”

  “Do you know a man named Roger Applegate?”

  “No.”

  “Sure?”

  “Yes. If you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’m going to call the sheriff and tell him you’re a liar.”

  Jared grinned. “He already knows that, but you’re right in that he’d love to have something to bring me in on. If he’d had his way he would have turned me over to the mob. If there’d been a mob, that is.”

  She glared at him.

  He smiled at her. “So who is Granville?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but he’s my lawyer—which I’m sure you know. Why are you here? What were you looking for in my house?”

  “I don’t know.” He took another bite, then took an infuriatingly long time chewing it. “I’ve been in this bed for many hours now and I’ve had a lot of time to think. I didn’t want this assignment, but my boss said I was the only one who could do it.”

  “Do what? What is your assignment?”

  “To seduce you into telling me what you know.”

  “What?” Eden asked, aghast. “Seduce me?”