Within Reason: Mill Brook Trilogy, Book 2

by Carla Neggers

  Death by hanging or death by electrocution. Char asked, “What percentage of this job is typing?”

  “That all depends on how fast you type. I’d estimate sixty percent.”

  Char frowned. “That’s not the job you advertised, Mr. Marston.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  As soon as she could afford to in her practice in Mill Brook, Char had hired a full-time legal secretary. She had assumed Marston already had one and she would be a paralegal, as he’d stated he wanted. She might be able to fake it for the moment and get the job. But how long before he discovered her inadequacies and fired her? She had to get her credentials in order and hang out her own shingle. It’d be back to lawyering—back to Go—but at least she wouldn’t lie awake nights wondering what kind of nut-case mother she was to her poor kid.

  She took the typing test and flunked.

  On her way out Howard Marston balled up her resume and arced it into his wastebasket across the room, no doubt his entertainment for the day.

  Char slunk back to her car and almost wished she hadn’t given Adam false directions to her place. They could have grilled catfish and drunk lemonade on the big rock overlooking the Cumberland River in front of her tent.

  And I could have listened to him badger me about how the hell I ended up living like Huck Finn.

  No thanks.

  She pulled out of the parking lot and saw but paid no attention to the nondescript sedan that edged in behind her.

  Twenty minutes later she realized the nondescript sedan was following her. Had she not been so preoccupied with her problems she would have realized it sooner. Now she had already made the turn off the main road onto the back road that led to her spot on the river. But the creepy feeling that raised the hairs at the back of her neck quickly dissipated, replaced by something a little too close to exhilaration for her tastes.

  Adam.

  He was in the sedan. He was following her.

  ‘Thinks he’s hot stuff, I’ll bet,” she muttered, glancing in her rearview mirror. The sun was at such an angle that she couldn’t see his face, but the driver had to be Adam.

  She bit down on the corner of her mouth. What was she going to tell him? She was on a picnic. Or off fishing. Adam being Adam, he’d demand to see her picnic basket or her fishing rod, neither of which she had on her.

  She’d just have to tell him the truth.

  Sort of.

  In the hot, still afternoon air the Cumberland River flowed quietly through the hills of central Tennessee, so different from the bright, cold Mill Brook rushing down from the mountains of southern Vermont. Adam slid his rented car to a stop behind Char’s beat-up hatchback. More than once on the narrow back road he had wondered if she’d spotted him and was leading him on yet another wild-goose chase. Belle Meade, Cheekwood. Was there another museum tucked away out here?

  He rolled down his window and waited for her to stomp over to him. He figured he’d catch it now, but she surprised him with her bright smile. “So you found me.”

  Adam leaned back and studied her for a moment, aware of a sudden increase in his heart rate as she came closer. Pure aggravation, no doubt. Char had a knack for bringing out the worst in him. The heat had settled her blouse against the soft contours of her breasts and abdomen and added a sheen to her skin, a frizz to her hair. She looked more human than he had ever noticed before... more beautiful.

  “You’re not funny, Char,” he told her. “You never have been.”

  Her eyes narrowed slightly, an echo of the sharp lawyer so many residents of Mill Brook had counted on. She tried her bright, airy, guiltless smile again. “You’re mad about Cheekwood, aren’t you? Oh, Adam, don’t be so serious!”

  “I’m not mad. I just want to know what you’re hiding.”

  “Nothing. Don’t you get it? Cheekwood was—”

  “A joke?’’ He could feel himself reddening, could feel his heart thudding in his chest. For a nickel he’d jump out of the damn car and... and what? Best not carry that thought too far, he decided. He was, after all, a prudent man. “Gee, Char, add the picture of Belle Meade you sent Beth and that makes two jokes in one year. That has to be a record for a no-nonsense lawyer such as yourself. Even when you were twelve you used to get disgusted when other kids played practical jokes. Remember what they used to call you?”

  The feigned smile disappeared. “I remember.”

  “Acid Mouth,” he said. “Acid Mouth Bradford.”

  “Do you remember everything? People change, Adam. I’ve changed. Coming to Tennessee and getting out of the legal profession has lightened me up. I’ve discovered I have a sense of humor.”

  “No, you don’t, Char. Even if Belle Meade and Cheekwood were your idea of jokes, that proves you have a long way to go before anyone’ll start calling you for Johnny Carson. But I don’t believe they were jokes. I believe they were your attempt to pull one over on Beth and myself.”

  ‘‘You’re the one with no sense of humor,” Char snapped, pulling open his car door. “Since you’re here you might as well have a look around.”

  Just what he was having a look around at, Adam wasn’t sure. He climbed out of the car, shutting the door softly behind him, as he noticed how stiff and tense Char was. That wasn’t like the Charity Winnifred Bradford he knew. Her incomparable blend of cool and irascibility had always pulled her through a confrontation with any hard-nosed judge, any hysterical client, any crisis of her own or someone else’s doing. For all her griping about life in southern Vermont, Char, if hardly ever predictable, had always been solid and reliable.

  Until now.

  “Living in a tent these days?” he asked in as neutral a tone as he could manage.

  She shrugged. “I suppose that’s what it looks like.”

  It certainly did. A large tent was set up on a picturesque knoll above the river in a grassy area surrounded by birch, small oak, poplar and cedar trees. There was a grill set up out front, with a small, weather-beaten picnic table, Emily’s bicycle, a couple of Adirondack chairs painted dark green. The place did have a certain homey charm. But it wasn’t Belle Meade, it wasn’t Cheekwood and it presented more questions than it answered.

  Char, however, wasn’t saying anything, just standing beside him with her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Adam didn’t blame her for keeping quiet. She had already dug her hole plenty deep enough. And even when he was in a good mood, Adam knew he didn’t much look it, and right now he was far, far from being in a good mood.

  He had to unclench his jaw to speak. “What do you do, catch fish for supper?”

  “As often as I can, yes. Emily loves fish.” Char squinted up at him, unrepentant if still tense. “Me and Huck Finn.”

  “Huck Finn didn’t have a seven-year-old daughter.”

  “I take damn good care of Emily.”

  “Does she do her homework by flashlight?”

  “She does her homework before it gets dark—and she’s just seven. She doesn’t get much homework.”

  Adam wasn’t impressed. “Does she brush her teeth in the river?”

  Char’s expression hardened. “I don’t have to explain myself to you, Adam. But, as it happens, we have bottled water in the tent and a battery-operated light.”

  Frowning, Adam walked over to a large rock on the edge of the knoll, overlooking the slow-moving river. His traitorous mind conjured an image of sitting there with Char, watching the sunset while Emily and his kids ran around and climbed trees.

  “What about snakes?” he asked.

  “We’re trying to catch a water moccasin for a pet,” Char said sarcastically behind him, “maybe cook one up for supper one night.”

  “Damn it, Char.” Adam tried to bite off his anger, but swung around at her. “What the hell’s wrong with you? You lie to your friends. You’re raising your daughter in a tent. You don’t have a job to speak of. What did you do, blow all your money on a horse?”

  “My life,” she said, slowly and very clearly, “is n
one of your business.”

  Adam wasn’t buying it, not this time. “Beth is my sister and your best friend. She’s worried about you. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

  Char just tightened her lips and didn’t say a word.

  Adam wasn’t in the mood to back off. “A lot of people in Mill Brook would love to have you back as their lawyer. You’ve got friends in Vermont, people who care about you and would be glad to help you get back on your feet. You wouldn’t even have to swallow your pride and ask for help. They’d just be there for you.”

  “Adam,” Char said with surprising patience.

  “What the hell are you going to do come winter?” he demanded, on a roll now. “Tennessee may not get as cold as Vermont, but it gets cold enough to make living in a tent uncomfortable, especially for a kid.” He exhaled in frustration and raked his hand through his hair. ‘‘Hell. If I have to, Char, I’ll haul your ass back to Vermont myself.”

  “Adam—”

  “I mean it. I’m not going to stand back and let you—”

  “Adam! Will you please shut up and listen to me?” Char had raised her voice to a shout, but lowered it now that she had his attention. She sighed, uncrossing her arms. “I appreciate your concern. Really, I do. I know Beth had you check up on me, and you’ve got better things to do with your time than meddle in my life on your sister’s behalf. And I haven’t exactly been fair to you. I see that now. I’ve been having some fun with you, apparently somewhat at my expense as well as yours.”

  Adam eyed her suspiciously, refusing to be taken in by her dark, honest eyes or the softness of her mouth. She had always been able to outlie Beth. He said, “Go on.”

  She took a deep breath. “You see, the tent’s temporary. Emily and I are doing an experiment. Living on the river like this is a learning experience—for both of us, actually. We’re learning about subsistence living, fishing, rivers, wildlife, weather. You wouldn’t believe all the birds we’ve seen, how good a time we’ve had without so much.. .1 don’t know, so much stuff around us.”

  Her dark eyes angled toward Adam, ever so slightly, and the pink tip of her tongue dragged across her lower lip, which looked parched. Lying, he figured, must dry out the system.

  When he didn’t say anything, she climbed up on the big rock overlooking the river and went on. “I want Emily to appreciate the world around her and to know she can survive—thrive—without tons and tons, literally, of material possessions. We’ve been living a pretty stark existence, I admit, but it’s been terrific. We’ve learned to appreciate what’s important.”

  Her voice took on a wistfulness, an unexpected sincerity, that drew Adam closer, made him want to get inside this woman’s head and find out what was really going on. Something profound had happened to Charity Bradford in the past year. Before leaving her beautiful hometown in the hills of southern Vermont, she had been known for her brutally realistic view of small-town life, which she refused to romanticize.

  Adam joined her on the rock. “And what’s that, Char? What’s important?”

  She didn’t look at him, but kept her eyes fixed on the river. “Each other, our dreams, our place in the world, not as users, but as givers. That sounds sappy, I know, but right now a beautiful sunset pleases me more than— I don’t know, than anything I’ve ever owned. And the chance to appreciate that sunset counts for something, too. I’m not just running around and chasing pots of gold any longer. I believe in hard work, but I guess being out here has made me redefine my definition of success. I hope it has for Emily, as well. I want her to be practical, I want her to develop skills and the drive that will see her through life. But I think now we both see that we need to have our own yardsticks for success and not allow ourselves to be tricked into using someone else’s.”

  She stopped suddenly and looked around at Adam, her eyes wide and her cheeks flushed. “I haven’t yapped that much about anything in ages,” she said, and laughed, a little embarrassed. “Must be the heat. Would you like something to drink?”

  Adam shook his head, forcing himself to pull his gaze from the haunting depths of her eyes. Maybe the setting was getting to him, as well. “No, thanks. If the tent’s just you being weird, you must have a regular place to live. Where?”

  Her eyes narrowed immediately, taking on the incisiveness that had made her a lawyer people wanted on their side. “You want to see my house?”

  “And meet Em’s nanny.”

  “You don’t trust me.”

  He looked her straight in the eye. “Not a lick.”

  She jumped down off the rock, and Adam followed, landing closer to her than he would have liked. “Adam, I’m what you might call a lady farmer. I hire people to do the work on my place while I do other things. I’m sorry if I’ve led you to believe anything else.”

  “Your horse venture’s been a success, then?”

  “Of course.”

  “What were you doing at that sleazy lawyer’s office?”

  “Don’t get prosecutorial with me, Adam. But, as it happens, that was a wild-goose chase I was sent on. I’d heard this guy had a top colt for sale and thought I’d check it out. You have to act fast in this business, chase down every lead. If I’d known my way around Nashville better, I’d have realized I was just going to waste my time, which I certainly did.”

  Adam didn’t say a word, just studied the woman who had been his sister’s best buddy forever and wondered if he could believe anything she was telling him. He didn’t think so.

  “Look, speaking of time, I have to run and pick up Emily. If you want to see my house, all you have to do is follow this road back to the fork, bear left, and it’ll take you right up to the main house. I’m actually on my own land here.”

  “Then you do have a house?”

  “Uh-huh. It was a steal, Adam. The guy who owned it went bankrupt, and there I was with cash in my hand. It’s not Belle Meade or Cheekwood, but it’s close enough for my tastes. You don’t have to bother checking it out if you don’t have time. I know you have a flight to catch.”

  “I can catch another. In fact, why don’t you bring Emily up to the house and we can talk more. Better yet, I’ll go with you to pick her up.”

  “That’s not necessary.”

  Her tone was cool. Too cool. Adam said, “Char, if this is another lie...”

  She laughed, the coolness vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. “I have had fun with you, Adam, and I’m sorry if I worried you. I just didn’t realize you’d get so carried away with my supposed problems. I mean, how could you ever think I’d be reduced to living in a tent?”

  She had a point there. Adam didn’t know whether he should squirm for having jumped to entirely wrong conclusions about her fate in Tennessee or pick her up and dunk her in the river until she finally told him the truth.

  Was she lying or wasn’t she?

  “Adam,” she said gently, taking his hand, “have you ever known me to fail at anything?”

  In truth, he hadn’t. “There’s always a first time, Char.”

  “This isn’t it, not for me.”

  With that, she headed off to her car, but Adam stayed put, watching how stiffly she moved. Something still wasn’t right. “Is that heap you drive part of your anti-materialism kick?’’

  She whirled around at him, all hair and eyes and beautiful mouth. “Couldn’t have said it better myself. Left at the fork, Adam. See you in about twenty minutes. Oh—the housekeeper’s name is Ginger.”

  “Ginger,” he repeated, but Char was already in her car, revving up the engine.

  A housekeeper named Ginger, a Peruvian nanny, a big spread on the Cumberland River. It could all be true.

  Then again, with Char, you just never knew.

  Deciding he’d never get away with trying to follow her again, Adam got into his rented car. Left at the fork. Well, why not? If there was no housekeeper named Ginger, no Peruvian nanny, no big spread, he knew where to find Char.

  And find her he would. He was da
mn sick of her lies... and altogether too intrigued by her eyes. He would deal with the lies now. The eyes...

  It was hot in Tennessee, he was away from his kids, away from his work. His response to those dark, mesmerizing eyes had nothing to do with Charity Bradford and would cure itself within hours of being back at the mill.

  He shook his head and started up the car. Now who was lying?

  First things first. He sped off, kicking up dust behind him. Left at the fork. Ginger. Back in twenty minutes.

  “You’d better hope it’s so, Char,” he muttered. “You’d better hope it’s so.”

  Chapter Four

  CHAR’S HEART WAS pounding, her shirt sticking to her as she waited behind an abandoned shack in a turnaround off the back road to her camp on the river. She had turned off her car engine but hadn’t bothered rolling down the windows. Before she could suffocate, Adam’s rented car puttered past her.

  She collapsed over the steering wheel in relief. She would get through this mess. All of it, not just the fleeting irritation Adam presented. In the end she would triumph. She just knew it. If she had any doubt, she didn’t know if she could keep on. She would just give up and return to Mill Brook in defeat.

  If only she could figure out what was going on with her. All these lies, all this posturing. She was playing games with Adam Stiles and she wasn’t a game player.

  She rolled down her window and listened.

  Nothing.

  Adam was on his way. Within minutes he’d turn left at the fork and that would be that. He would be out of her life for good. Henceforth he would have nothing— absolutely nothing—to do with her.

  She couldn’t think about that now. Shifting her car into gear, she doubled back to her campsite.

  Maybe what she was doing with Adam Stiles wasn’t playing games. Maybe, she thought miserably, all she was doing was saving face. But wasn’t that all she had left?

  She left the engine running when she jumped out of her car. She worked fast, breathlessly, sloppily. She dragged everything out of her tent, pulled up stakes, folded, jammed, stuffed and otherwise forced as much as she could into her hatchback. What didn’t fit into the hatch, she shoved into the back and front seats. What didn’t fit anywhere—the grill, the Adirondack chairs— she left.