Within Reason: Mill Brook Trilogy, Book 2

by Carla Neggers

  ‘‘How’s Emily?” Adam asked quietly, breaking into her troubled thoughts.

  “Great. I’ve got to pick her up—”

  “Didn’t you tell Beth you’d hired a Mary Poppins?”

  She’d told Beth a lot of things. “My nanny? She’s wonderful, but she’s on vacation at the moment. Em’s visiting a friend.”

  Adam slid away from her car and stood in front of Char, so close she could take in every detail of him, every nuance of his seventy-four inches. He had always been a powerfully built man, but she didn’t remember him being so tall—a full head taller than she. If asked that morning, she would have said they were about the same height.

  “You’re a liar, Char,” he told her matter-of-factly. “Always have been.”

  She managed a grin. “Keeps me alert.”

  “How come you avoided me back at the gift shop?”

  “What woman in her right mind wouldn’t?”

  He nodded at that, making no argument. “I recognized your car as I passed by. Otherwise I’d have missed you.”

  “Lucky me,” she said, not too sarcastically. She wasn’t afraid of Adam, but she didn’t want to annoy him. He might decide to get his revenge by meddling in her life and finding out more things he had no business finding out. I want him to go back home and leave me alone. Really, I do.

  He let her comment slide. “Funny, a rich lady like you driving the same old bomb you’ve always driven. You remind me of Beth.”

  “That’s not fair. The fact is, Beth’s car’s a lot older than mine.”

  Adam wasn’t impressed. “Living in an antebellum mansion, you should at least have a decent car.”

  “Are you teasing me?” she asked in surprise. Julian, Adam’s younger brother and the middle Stiles, was the teaser in the family. Adam just didn’t know how, or so Char had always thought.

  “Just commenting on the ‘facts,’ as you call them.”

  What was that supposed to mean? “Well, I’m not into conspicuous consumption.”

  “Except when it comes to houses?”

  She dug her keys out of her handbag. “Really, I have to go. Em’ll start worrying.”

  “Dinner?” Adam asked suddenly, his eyes widening slightly, holding her in place as surely as if he’d grabbed her.

  A firm no was on Char’s lips. She hadn’t had dinner with Adam in years. When she had, Beth or Julian or his kids or his parents—somebody—had always been around. What would she say to him? What would he say to her? They would end up talking houses and cars and Vermont. He would ask her questions. His invitation had to be part of a plot to wheedle more information from her about her life in Tennessee. He didn’t want to have dinner. If nothing else, he was just fulfilling his sense of duty to his sister. In fact, Char could probably thank Beth for this entire visit.

  Definitely, Char thought, she should say no and get rid of Adam Stiles ASAP.

  But, honorable and duty-bound individual that Adam Stiles was, since he had done the inviting, he would consider picking up the tab his responsibility. Free food, Char cautioned herself, was free food. It had been weeks since she and Emily had been out on the town. Longer, even. Adam’s company was the price they would have to pay for the pleasure. Was it too high a price?

  “I can bring Em?”

  “Sure. You choose the place. What time?”

  “Six, if that’s not too early. Em poops out by eight.”

  “Fine. Where should I pick you up?”

  “I can meet you—”

  He shook his head in that stubborn Yankee way of his.

  Char sighed. “Right out at the front gate, then.”

  “Here?”

  “Where else?”

  He started toward her. “Char…”

  She smiled and quickly unlocked the driver’s door to her car. “We’ll be waiting.”

  Char couldn’t get away from Adam Stiles fast enough, but she hit the brakes at an upscale shopping center in the wealthy suburban town of Belle Meade, located on land that had once been part of the former plantation, and called Beth Stiles in Vermont. They had been best friends since nursery school; Beth had always been the one person Char could count on and trust. They used to climb trees as kids and plot how they were going to get out of Mill Brook and do something with their lives.

  Char gave Beth just enough time to say hello before she started in. “Why did you sic your big brother on me?”

  Beth didn’t even hesitate. “Because you haven’t invited me to your place in Tennessee and I got to wondering just what it is you aren’t telling me.”

  “I’ve been busy, that’s all.”

  “Then how come you’re so upset about seeing Adam, and how come you’re calling me? Come on, Char. Something’s up.”

  “Adam’s up—you know he drives me nuts. I wasn’t thinking straight when I called. Sorry to bother you.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. And you’re just blowing smoke. Level with me, okay? What’s going on?”

  Char took a deep breath, composing herself before she said something she would regret later. She and Beth had seldom kept secrets from each other, but there was a time for everything. “You don’t have to worry about me,” she said coolly, sounding more like her old lawyer self than she had in months. “So call off your brother, all right?”

  “You’re starting to sound paranoid. What’s Adam done to you?”

  “Nothing—yet. He just has that know-it-all mountain man way about him. You know how he is. Beth, please call him off.”

  “Char,” Beth exhaled. “Everything’s okay with our little enterprise, isn’t it?”

  Char bristled, feeling trapped and guilty, but she managed to say smoothly, “Yes, of course. You didn’t tell Adam about it, did you?”

  “Of course not. I’m not that crazy.”

  “Thank heavens,” Char said, unable to hide her relief. “Look, Beth, everything’s fine. I just don’t want Adam poking around in my life right now. You know how he is. He’ll never understand why I left Mill Brook. No need for you to worry. Really.”

  “It’s not the worse thing in the world to have someone worry about you, and I can’t help it. We’re your friends, Char. Adam, too, in his own way. You can’t hide from us.”

  “I’m not hiding! Listen, I’ve got to run. We’ll talk again soon.”

  And she hung up before Beth could say another word. Char hadn’t liked the note of suspicion—and concern—that had crept into her friend’s voice. If they had continued their conversation, Char undoubtedly would have said something to convince Beth she had done the right thing to sic Adam on her, which was all Char needed. Then Beth would call her brother and urge him to keep bugging Char until he had all the facts. Then, Char thought dismally, where would I be?

  “Not much worse off than I already am,” she muttered to herself.

  There was still, she didn’t need to remind herself, dinner ahead with Adam Stiles. She must have been nuts to have walked into that trap! It wasn’t as if she didn’t know what she was getting into. All those years in Mill Brook, Vermont, had left her with a clear notion of who and what Adam Stiles was.

  She’d just jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire was what she’d done.

  At least the evening wasn’t going to cost her anything.

  Not financially, anyway. Her nerves and her pride could suffer, but what did they matter anymore? The gnawing in her stomach, from another in a series of skipped lunches, told her that what counted now was food. And she couldn’t wait to tell Emily they were having dinner out. Little gadabout that she was, she’d be thrilled.

  Climbing back into her car, Char turned her mind to considering the options of just where she would have Adam take them for dinner. There were a zillion good restaurants in the Nashville area, most of which she had only read about. Her mouth watered. Shed been eating healthy foods lately; lots of legumes. What she wanted now, she decided, was a nice, thick, juicy steak.

  A couple of hours of Adam Stiles surely
wasn’t too high a price to pay for such a treat.

  “Did Char tell you Belle Meade’s a museum?” Adam sat on the edge of the king-size bed in his hotel suite as he spoke to his sister. He had taken a long, therapeutic swim, trying to put Char temporarily out of his mind, before calling Beth. “I’ll send you a brochure.”

  “Adam, what the hell’s going on?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I don’t know anything to tell you! Look, I’m worried. Char might hate me for it, but I have to know what’s going on with her. I know you are like fire and water, but—” Beth broke off, frustrated. “Adam, normal people don’t tell their friends they live in museum houses.”

  “Since when has Char ever been a normal person?”

  But he sighed, relenting, if only because his business in Tennessee wasn’t nearly as interesting as Charity Bradford’s apparent secrets. Not to mention his sister’s. That Beth had left out a few pertinent details regarding her wayward friend was obvious to Adam, who wasn’t the only one to find his sister an easy read. Her honest nature was appealing and often helpful in business, but also, on occasion, got her into trouble. She was a lousy liar. Adam, however, had decided back in Mill Brook when he’d accepted Beth’s mission that he wasn’t going to browbeat her for the truth. If Beth wanted to tell him what the hell was going on, she’d get around to it. If not, he’d pry it out of her one fact at a time... or he’d get it from Char.

  “This isn’t going to be easy,” he went on. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I guess I do. Char plays everything close to the chest—one reason she’s such a good lawyer. Maybe this Belle Meade thing was a joke, but you know Char. She’s never been much of a prankster.”

  A vision of Charity Bradford, J.D., dressed in one of her power suits and withering the other side in a courtroom battle seeped its way into Adam’s mind. No, Char wasn’t known for her sense of humor. Sending Beth a picture of a museum house and saying she lived there wasn’t Mill Brook’s favorite hard-case lawyer’s idea of a joke.

  So why had she done it?

  “Okay, Beth,” he said, “I’ll see what I can find out.”

  “Thanks, Adam.”

  “I’m taking her to dinner tonight.”

  “What?”

  Adam frowned at the shock in his sister’s voice. “I said I’m taking her to dinner tonight. How cheap do you think I am?”

  But Beth was silent.

  “Beth?”

  “It is bad, Adam. She’s in trouble. I know she is. For Char to agree to let anyone take her to dinner is a near miracle. You know how she is about paying her own way in the world. But to let you of all people take her... it’s got to be bad.”

  ‘Thanks a lot. But I think I know what you mean. Our sweet Charity has always preferred to give than to receive.”

  He could hear his own sarcasm and backed off: whatever her faults, Char was Beth’s friend. But past irritations involving Charity Bradford weren’t the only source of his sarcasm, and Adam knew he might as well admit it. The sarcasm rose, too, out of self-defense. Something about Char had gotten under his skin today. It had been as if he were seeing her for the first time. He had noticed the warm beauty of her eyes, the confident, saucy grin, the delicate curve of her breasts. The intelligence was still there, the toughness and the hotheadedness, but they weren’t a surprise. Neither, if he thought about it, was the rest, only his reaction. For years he had seen Char simply as his younger sister’s closest friend and Mill Brook’s most sought-after and intimidating lawyer, not as a complex and very attractive woman. Funny how he had never really thought of Char that way. Complex, attractive ... desirable.

  His swim had helped, but not enough.

  “Look,” he told his sister, “I’ll do what I can to find out what’s going on but Beth, Char’s a grown woman. She has a right to her own life.”

  “I’m her friend,” Beth snapped. “I have rights, too.”

  And what was he? Adam shook off the question. “Then I’ll keep you posted.”

  “Good luck with dinner.”

  He nodded grimly. “Thanks. Knowing Char, I’m sure I’ll need it.”

  Chapter Two

  CHAR AND EMILY arrived at Belle Meade ten minutes ahead of schedule. An afternoon thunderstorm had brought an all too temporary relief from the sultry air, and within minutes after the rain ended, Char felt her cotton shirt clinging to her back. Emily Bradford Williams, a slight, dark-eyed seven-year-old with straight tawny hair and crooked bangs—trimmed by her mother’s own awkward fingers—was in a pout. She had wanted to wear her Vermont T-shirt with the Holstein on the front, but Char had put her foot down. She had also vetoed Emily’s second choice, her Grand Ol’ Opry T-shirt. Her father had bought it for her on his only trip to Tennessee, to see where his daughter was living. That had been months before the tent, which Char had explained to Emily was an adventure Daddy just would never understand.

  When Emily finally dragged out one of the frilly, impossible dresses her paternal grandmother insisted on buying her, Char had had to give in. Emily, however, continued to feel put-upon.

  “You don’t have to stand around looking pretty,” Char told her, guessing what the real issue at stake was. “Dresses wash.”

  Bingo.

  Never one to hold a grudge for long, Emily took her mother at her word and started running around and all but turning somersaults. So much for prim and proper.

  Two minutes before six Adam still hadn’t arrived. Char half hoped, half dreaded that Beth had heeded her advice and called off her older brother and dinner was canceled. There would be no grilling, no dodging, no lying—but also no dinner. And, she had to admit, no touching base with somebody from Mill Brook, Vermont, even if it was Adam Stiles.

  Something annoyingly like relief washed over her when Adam pulled up to the curb in his rented car and climbed out, looking impatient and irritable and so damn sexy Char almost lost her breath. His occasional episodes of bad temper had never fazed her. His sexiness she’d never noticed. Now it was almost palpable—something she could touch with her hand. Maybe she was just reacting to the heat.

  Before Char could say a word, Emily jumped forward, calling, “Uncle Adam, Uncle Adam!”

  Ignoring Char, Adam crouched down in front of the little girl and greeted her with a warm hug, then pulled a couple of pictures from his wallet of Abby and David “from home” and presented her with a tiny box of maple sugar candy, also “from home.”’ Pleasure radiated in Em’s still-cherubic face. She thanked Uncle Adam profusely. She tore open the box and tried a piece of the candy. Then she looked up at her mother and said, “Mummy, he’s not that mean.”

  Char pretended not to hear her daughter’s remark and urged her into the back seat of the rented car, while Adam, coming up from his crouch, responded with a soft laugh. Char found his laughter oddly disturbing. She wasn’t embarrassed by Emily’s innocent betrayal: Adam had known Char’s opinion of him years before her daughter had ever been born. No, she found his laugh disturbing because of what it did to the backs of her knees. It made them tingle. For the first time in her life she had to admit that the sawmill king of Mill Brook, Vermont, that stoic Yankee she’d known all her life, had an incorrigibly sexy laugh. Even when Char had had her mercifully brief crush on him at twelve, she hadn’t been aware of his laughter doing anything to the backs of her knees.

  Not a great start to an already potentially explosive evening. Perhaps, she thought, the tingling in the backs of her knees was just the result of her long day and the heat. That was the trick: blame the heat.

  She shut the back door and let Emily tackle her seat belt alone, as was her customary wish. “I’m not a baby,” she’d pronounced three years ago when Char had last tried to give her a hand. Fortunately Emily was more Bradford than Williams. Nick, born wearing cuff links and garters, was a decent enough man, but he hadn’t understood Char, hadn’t taken to becoming a father at twenty-six and had generally proved to be an unsympathetic
presence in the lives of both his wife and daughter. Char was convinced Emily saw more of him since her parents’ divorce than she would have had they remained married. Nick paid his child support on time—Char didn’t have to remind him she was a lawyer—and he had Emily one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer, apparently just enough to satisfy all concerned. Emily understood her father and bore neither him nor her mother any ill will over a failed marriage she couldn’t even remember. “Dad’s just Dad,” she would say. It was a charitable attitude Char encouraged, her own active animosity toward her ex-husband having faded as their years apart marched on.

  “Aren’t you going to get in?” Adam asked, breaking into her thoughts.

  She scowled at him, but immediately regretted her own obvious bad mood. So far the man hadn’t really done or said anything wrong. What was it about him that made her feel so damn defensive? You can relax, she told herself. He doesn’t know anything.

  Not yet.

  He doesn’t have to find out. You just need to be extra-careful.

  “Char? You coming?”

  She nodded. “I’ve had a long day. My mind was wandering.”

  He let it go at that, and Char climbed into the passenger seat. When was the last time she had been out with a man? It seemed like forever. She had been too busy, too preoccupied in the past year. Her social life had plummeted to the bottom of her list of concerns. In fact, it wasn’t even on her list of concerns. And, in any case, having dinner with Adam Stiles wasn’t like going out with a man. He was Adam. Beth’s big brother. President of a family-owned sawmill business. A taciturn, isolated man with two children he adored. A Vermonter to his very core. The last thing he was was a date.

  But she noticed the light, subtle scent of his cologne when he climbed into the car, and the well-developed muscles in his arms and shoulders. He’d put on a sport coat, but no tie. Ties weren’t easy to negotiate with one hand. Still, he was dressed as fancily as Char had ever seen him dressed, except for his junior prom, when she and Beth, couple of pests that they’d been, had teased him and his buddy about looking like Laurel and Hardy.