First Impressions

by Jude Deveraux

  The streets of Arundel were empty at that time of the morning, so Eden ran the red lights and made her way to the bridge as fast as she could. She went over the bridge at sixty, twice hitting her head on the roof of the car. I won’t sign anything until he releases everyone, she thought.

  She stopped the car on the road, jumped out, grabbed the two weapons, and started running toward her house. Standing on the side of a wooden flower bed, she looked into the living room window. She could see a light in the center hall and she thought she could see the silhouettes of at least three people. Who were they?

  “Where the hell did you come from?” came Jared McBride’s voice close to her ear. “I thought you were inside.”

  “Who is in there?” she asked as she handed him the rifle and the pistol. She still had the little gun in her trouser pocket.

  “Granville and his son-in-law are taped up and on the floor in the hall. Jolly and his goons are moving around.”

  “I guess you know that man Jolly.”

  “Oh, yeah. We’ve never been able to get him on anything before because he leaves no witnesses. Where’s your daughter?”

  “With her husband at the sheriff’s.”

  “When Jolly hears the sirens, he’ll shoot Granville and the kid.”

  Eden swallowed. “What do we do?”

  “We do nothing. Now that I know you’re safe, I plan to go in there, and—”

  “And save everyone? All by yourself?”

  “If you think that you are going with me, I’ll tie you up first.”

  “Sex later. Right now we have to think about business.”

  Jared gave a snort of laughter. “You can’t go in there. There’ll be gunfire.”

  Eden swallowed again. “How about if I go in there, sign his papers, and he leaves with the paintings?”

  “You think he’ll leave after he gets them? Wave good-bye? Say thank you? No, he intends to kill anyone who’s seen him.”

  “But Melissa is already at the sheriff’s house.”

  “He’ll get her later.”

  Eden pulled the little gun from her pocket. “Show me how to work this thing.”

  Jared hesitated, then took the gun from her. “I want you to know that I’m only doing this because I have no other choice. I want you to go in the back, up those little stairs, then come down the big stairs. Just wait there and do nothing. When the time is right, I’ll shout, ‘Look out!’ then I want you to fire this. Don’t try to hit anyone because you’ll miss. Just shoot in the air. The noise will create a diversion and that’ll be enough. Understand me?”

  All Eden could do was nod, then she followed him to the back of the house. He climbed on the giant air conditioner on the ground, lifted the window up, then bent down to help Eden to climb up. She started to climb through the window, but he stopped her, and for a moment she thought he was going to kiss her, but he didn’t. Instead, he just looked into her eyes, and the look said that he’d die to save her. Chills ran up her spine, and she leaned toward him, but he gently pushed her toward the window.

  She knew the old house well. No one else could have sneaked around on the old floors in silence, but she could. She knew to lift up on the door to the stairs so its hinges wouldn’t make noise, and she knew that she had to step over steps six and nine or they would creak. When she reached the top of the stairs, she put her ear to the door and listened, but she heard nothing. Slowly, she opened the door and peered out. Tyrrell Farrington’s paintings had been stacked on the floor, ready to be taken out of the house. When she heard a sound outside, she tiptoed to the window. Two men were loading a paneled truck with the paintings. They were taking their time and seemed to be arguing about how to get all the paintings into the truck, but Eden knew that soon they’d return to the house, to this hall, to get the paintings stacked there.

  There are too few of us and too many of them, she thought. Bad men were outside and in, and it was only her and Jared. If only she could create a big diversion, she thought.

  On her bedside table was her ring of keys, the one Brad had given her when he’d turned the house over to her. Her first thought was, What are they doing there? They should have been in her handbag.

  In the next second a ray of moonlight came through the window and landed on the little silver angel on the ring. Mrs. Farrington’s angel. Eden looked at the angel, and she could hear Mrs. Farrington’s voice. She’d always hated the cellar, and one of her many reasons was that she was afraid that everything in it would explode. Eden smiled. She knew what to do and how to do it.

  A second later, she was running down the stairs, leaping over the creaking steps as she whispered “Thank you” to what she knew was Mrs. Farrington’s watching spirit.

  In the dark kitchen she could hear the voices of the men in the hall. The two men from outside had come back in. She heard Jolly’s voice, and he sounded agitated. The thought of Brad and Remi tied up on the floor gave her new courage. She hurried across the room to the pantry. First, she lifted the window that led to the side porch. She’d read that a thief always planned his exit first. When the window was open, she lifted the door in the floor, then she took out the gun Jared had given her. She knew she couldn’t shoot something small, but maybe she could hit a wall full of jars of twenty-two-year-old pickled fruit. They’d had time to ferment by now.

  Turning her head away, she aimed at the wall she couldn’t see in the dark and shot. She was rewarded with an explosion—and the exploding jar set off a chain reaction. As Eden dove through the open window, she heard men running. She hid behind an overturned chair, her breath held, as she heard men shouting. The next second, she heard a door slam and knew that Jared had locked the men in the pantry. When one of them started to come out the window, Eden fired a shot in his general direction and he went back inside. Two minutes later, she heard sirens, and in the distance, she heard a helicopter. Eden stayed where she was, the gun aimed at the open window, ready to shoot at anyone who tried to leave the pantry. There were tears running down her cheeks.

  It was over.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  “EDEN,” Brad said, reaching for her hand. He was half reclining on the cushioned swing in front of his house, a cane propped against the wall. Summer had finally come to Arundel, and the unusually cool spring was over.

  Eden didn’t take his hand, acting as though she didn’t see it. Holding on to her glass of sweet tea, she looked out at Arundel. She now had absolutely everything that she’d ever dreamed of having. It was as though she’d spent her entire life as a tightly wrapped flower bud, and now she was at last blossoming. When she was a child and had lived with her repressive parents who told her that everything in life was bad, she’d looked at the other children at her school with longing. She used to listen to them talk about their parties and their dates, and she imagined what it would be like to be one of them.

  When she’d become pregnant and had been discarded by her parents, thrown out, tossed aside like so much rubbish, she’d been terrified beyond comprehension. She’d been too young to think clearly, but the question Why me? had filled her mind.

  Mrs. Farrington had been the first person who had really cared about her, and Eden used to imagine what it would be like to be Mrs. Farrington. She daydreamed about growing up in that beautiful house, with that beautiful garden, and belonging to a group of people whose friendship extended back hundreds of years. To belong! she thought. To belong to a group of people who never threw you out.

  In the last weeks since Melissa had been kidnapped, Eden had found out that a lot of people knew about Drake Haughton’s mental instability. The young man hadn’t been kidding when he said that all he’d done was draw Brad’s ideas. Eden found out that Drake had never wanted to be an architect. Just like Tyrrell Farrington, Drake had wanted to study fine art. But Drake’s father, like Tyrrell’s father a century before, had forbidden his son to do something so bohemian. If Drake wanted his father to pay for his education, if Drake wanted to receive his inhe
ritance, then he’d have to get a proper degree in a proper subject, and use his education. Out of friendship, Brad had given Drake a job, but the young man had been driven nearly insane with longing for a different life.

  Now Eden looked out at the perfect little town of Arundel, and it seemed different to her. In the years that she’d had to raise a child by herself, memories of this pretty little town had kept her going. It was what she strove to achieve. She’d never had much money, but she’d taught her daughter the good manners that Mrs. Farrington had taught Eden. Melissa knew how to converse, how to say please and thank you. She knew how to act at a party. No, Eden thought, her daughter hadn’t been raised to be a kid who wore blue jeans and ate fast food. Her daughter—

  “Eden?” Brad asked again. “Are you here with me?”

  She took a sip of her tea and smiled. “Of course I am. I’m just thinking, that’s all.”

  “You’ve been through a lot,” he said.

  “We have.” She drank more of her tea and looked back at the town. Yes, she’d been through a lot in the short time that she’d been back here in Arundel. She’d returned to a town that she’d known as a child, but now she was an adult. And as an adult, she saw things that she hadn’t seen before.

  “Want to talk to me about anything?” Brad asked.

  “Not yet,” she said, still smiling. She knew what he meant. Two days after the FBI had taken Jolly and his men away, Brad had asked her to marry him. “You were magnificent,” he’d said.

  Eden had wanted to explain about her and Jared and what that odious Jolly had said in the icehouse, but Brad had put a finger to her lips. “We’re adults,” he said. “We’ve both made mistakes. We’ve hurt each other. I think we should start over, don’t you?”

  At the time, Eden had agreed with him, but later she thought that she didn’t want to start over. It wasn’t right to go through what they had and learn so much, then discard it and pretend that it hadn’t happened.

  In the last weeks, Eden had seen that it was at last time to let go of her daughter. No more tug-of-war. No more tearing Melissa down in the middle and making her choose between her husband and her mother.

  After everything had calmed down, Eden had sat down with her daughter and a huge bowl of popcorn and they’d talked. Not with all the boundaries that mother-daughter placed on them, but as woman to woman. Eden was shocked to hear what had been going on among her and Stuart and Eden. Eden realized that she’d caused her daughter many tears by not letting her grow up, by not letting her leave. “But you’re all I have,” Eden said.

  “Don’t you think I know that? I am your entire life! You have nothing else but me! And all I’ve ever had is you!”

  Melissa told her mother about the call from Minnie and the information about her father. Melissa had called him immediately and had paid for his plane ticket to fly to Greenville.

  “But all he wanted was money,” Melissa said. “And he tried to make me believe that you had seduced him.” With tears running down her face, Melissa told what the man had said, that Eden had ruined his marriage, ruined his whole life. “He blamed you for all his problems. He…” At the end, Walter Runkel had run his hand up Melissa’s arm in a way that had made her flee the airport and run into Drake Haughton’s arms.

  That talk changed them. Melissa said she wanted her husband and child, but she was afraid to leave her mother alone. After much hesitation, Eden at last admitted that she had no idea in the world what she wanted.

  “But you’re a rich woman now,” Melissa said. “You have this house and this town that you’ve always loved, and Brad adores you. You could marry him and live here forever. I can see you as the Grande Dame of the whole town.” She was teasing her mother. “I can see that ambitious young women would fight to be invited to your parties. What you wear will be reported in the local newspaper.” She waved her hand about the house. “You could have a New York interior designer come here and drape this place in silk. You could get into Architectural Digest. Wouldn’t that be something for a little girl who was thrown into the streets? Mother! Maybe you could get on Oprah and tell your story.”

  Eden didn’t smile at Melissa’s vision. It was nearly the same vision Jared had given her, except that this time it was presented in a way meant to entice. “Mrs. Farrington said that this house was dead until I put a baby in it.”

  Melissa clasped her mother’s hand. “Stuart and I and the baby will visit you often. Every long weekend and every holiday. Did you know that Remi has asked Stuart to handle the books for his new landscaping business?”

  Eden smiled. After the police and the FBI arrived, Brad told them that Remi had saved his life. One of Jolly’s men had wanted to kill Brad, but Remi had quickly said that he knew where all of the paintings were and he’d tell if they didn’t hurt Brad. In the end, Remi had hoisted his wounded father-in-law across his shoulder and carried him to the car.

  When Brad was in the hospital and thanking Remi, the young man said, “I want my own landscaping company. I don’t want to work for you or anyone else.” His eyes were defiant and he was standing up to his full height, his shoulders back.

  “You have it,” Brad said, “and if you need—”

  “I have everything else that I need,” Remi said, his arm around Cammie’s shoulders.

  Since that day, Eden had seen Brad’s morose daughter smile a whole two times.

  “Somebody’s gettin’ some,” Minnie had said, and poked Eden in the ribs.

  Minnie had spent quite a bit of time begging Eden to forgive her. Eden was sure it was small of her, but she couldn’t forgive Minnie for what she’d done. Minnie had hurt people over her imagined involvement with Jared McBride.

  Eden didn’t answer her, but she’d told Brad that he had to free Minnie from her obligation to him. “I don’t care if you do hate living alone, we all do, but you must give that girl her freedom.” He deeded the overseer’s house to Minnie, and now she was Eden’s neighbor.

  Minnie liked to pretend that nothing had happened between her and Eden, but Eden couldn’t do it. She spoke to Minnie, but she wasn’t warm, wasn’t friendly.

  And then there was Jared. She hadn’t seen or heard from him since he went off in a helicopter with Mr. Jolly and his men. That night he’d been angry at her. “I told you to stay put,” he said, his eyes blazing, “but you went up and down the stairs. You could have been killed!”

  His tone said he was furious with her, but his eyes looked as though he wanted to pull her into his arms and cry in happiness that she wasn’t hurt. But he hadn’t touched her. By then they were surrounded by people, all of them wanting to ask a thousand questions.

  Jared had raised his hand in farewell to her as the helicopter lifted off the ground. She didn’t know if she’d ever see him again.

  The next day some art experts arrived and they wanted to take all the paintings away with them, but Eden wouldn’t let them. They’d already lost one of Tyrrell’s paintings in the shower. She wasn’t going to lose the rest of them. She wouldn’t release the paintings until a document, written by Brad, was signed by them saying that they’d make a complete photographic recording of Tyrrell’s family pictures before the underlying paintings were uncovered.

  In the end, only four of the paintings turned out to be valuable. One minor, three major. But, historically, the paintings that Tyrrell had preserved were worth a fortune. She’d already been approached by two authors who wanted to write about what the paintings told about the time of the Impressionists.

  As Melissa said, Eden was now very wealthy, or would be as soon as the paintings were restored and sold. The art world was excited about the find, and Christie’s auction house expected two of the paintings to go for millions.

  “Eden?” Brad asked again. “You don’t look well. Is it the heat? Would you like to go inside to the air-conditioning?”

  “No,” she said. “I like it out here.” She looked at him. “Have you ever wanted something so much that you thought you�
�d die without it, then when you got it, it wasn’t as good as you thought it was?”

  “Of course. Anyone over the age of three has experienced that.” His face was serious. “What is it you wanted so much?”

  “Mrs. Farrington’s life,” she said. “I thought that if I’d had what she was given, I wouldn’t have made a mess of it. She married the wrong man and had the wrong child. She conducted herself in some very unladylike ways. I didn’t realize it, but I was always criticizing her in my mind. I was thinking that if I had had loving parents and I had had a good school and birthday parties and—” She looked at him. “Did you know that I’ve never had a birthday party in my life? It’s been something that I’ve fantasized about all my life. Whenever I watch TV, see a movie, or read a book, and someone gives a birthday party for someone else, even a child, I get teary-eyed. Isn’t that silly?”

  “I don’t think wanting affection and celebration is silly,” he said seriously. “Eden, you’re trying to tell me something, but I don’t know what it is.”

  She set down her glass of tea. “I wanted Mrs. Farrington’s life, but now that I can have it, I find that I don’t want it. I don’t want to live in that old house alone—” She put up her hand when he started to speak. “I don’t want to live in it with a man and ‘drape it in silk,’ as my daughter says. That house deserves life. Young life.” She didn’t add that her daughter had the “wrong” name, so she’d be safe from all that Eden had grown to dislike about Arundel.

  When she started to stand up, Brad caught her arm. His leg was still in bandages and it hurt him a lot. He grabbed his cane and tried to stand, but Eden gently pushed him down in the swing.