by Jackie Braun
Dane sighed heavily. There would be no living down that one. “Yes. Regina Bellini wants Saybrook’s to purchase her Victorian and the surrounding acreage.”
“I don’t get it,” Seth piped up. “Why would she think you guys would be interested in buying a house, especially one on the mainland?”
Although Audra’s husband wasn’t an actual partner in the resort, Dane valued the man’s insights. Unfortunately the way he was eyeing Dane right now had him worried that his brother-in-law might see a little too much.
“Expansion, I guess. We’re landlocked on Trillium.”
“Saybrook’s on the Pointe,” Ali murmured and glanced up from the proposal Ree had left behind. Dane had made copies of it for everyone. “She put some real thought into this. You’ll notice that on page seven she lists possible ways for us to tie in both locations by offering golf course packages and even running a private ferry from a dock on the property.”
“Yes, but I still don’t understand why she came to us,” Audra said, picking up where her husband left off. “More specifically, why did she come to you?”
“Saybrook’s has a good reputation,” Dane evaded. When Audra just kept watching him, he decided to redirect the conversation. “As you can see from the photographs, the property is right on the water. Prime real estate,” he added, recalling how Ree had told him that herself. Twice. The words were superfluous then and they were now. Everything on Lake Michigan’s coast was prime.
“Where exactly is this?” Luke wanted to know.
“North of the main ferry dock in Petoskey. A few miles, give or take.” Despite his vague reply, Dane saw the light dawn in his friend’s eyes.
“Good God! She’s the one. Regina Bellini was your rescuer!”
All hell broke loose then, with his sisters peppering Dane with questions until he thought his head would explode.
“No fair.” Seth shouted to be heard over the din. “I didn’t get a chance to see her. What does she look like?”
“Let’s see,” Audra began. “I think the word gorgeous might be a fair assessment.”
“I was thinking sexy,” Ali added.
“And built.” That description earned Luke a good poke in the side from his bride.
“It’s interesting that you never mentioned what a little hottie your Good Samaritan is,” Audra teased. “For some reason I got the impression that the woman who took you in for the night and tended to your wounds was some babushka-wearing granny decked out in support hose and bifocals.”
Dane caught his sisters exchanging glances, no doubt they were now tying the timing of his breakup with Julie to the night he’d spent with Regina and recalling just how surly his mood had been ever since.
“I never mentioned her looks because they aren’t important.”
“Right,” Audra snorted.
“Uh-huh,” Ali seconded.
“Drop it guys. She’s married.”
Four sets of eyes rounded.
“Married?” Audra blinked. “Gosh, honey, I’m sorry.”
Dane shoved his chair back from the table and carried his plate over to the sink. “Why the hell are you sorry? She’s married. What’s the big deal? There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
“Nothing?” Ali asked.
“Nothing. Not. A. Damned. Thing,” he stressed, scraping the food scraps from his dinner plate into the garbage disposal.
He figured the subject was settled. The room had grown quiet. The only sound was the clinking of dishes and stemware as the table was cleared. Thankfully it appeared his sisters’ curiosity had been satisfied.
But then Seth reopened the can of worms. “So, if she has a husband, why did she come to you for help?”
All eyes were on Dane again. He turned on the disposal to give himself a minute to think. Then, he said, “Who knows? Maybe she figures I owe her a favor.”
It niggled a bit that he felt that way, too. She might’ve been a liar, but she’d put a roof over his head and food in his belly. She’d patched up his hand. She’d given him her bed…he’d had a hard time sleeping ever since.
“That’s good enough for me,” Audra said.
Their partnership in Saybrook’s had been her idea, and she could take credit for the massive remodeling efforts throughout the resort. She had a keen knack for business, it turned out. It pleased Dane to see her finally living up to her potential and using the brain God had tucked inside her pretty head, which was why her emotional reaction surprised him.
“This is business, Aud.”
“Fine. I’ll buy it then. Personally.”
Audra was wealthy enough to do just that. She could whip out her checkbook and write out any sum Ree asked and that would be the end of it. Problem solved.
Or would it be? Something told Dane that Regina Bellini would continue to haunt his peace no matter where she lived…or with whom.
Maybe that was why his tone was so impatient when he said, “What would you do with another house, Aud? You and Seth just built one.”
“She took care of you, Dane. Who knows what would have happened if she hadn’t opened her home to you that night. That’s worth the purchase price right there.”
“I agree,” Ali said.
His sisters regarded him knowingly. He’d shared only the most basic details of his misadventure with his family, downplaying its seriousness. What point was there in scaring them after the fact, especially with Audra pregnant? But they had taken one look at his battered clothing and bruised body and they had known perfectly well how close they’d come to losing him.
“Lakefront property is a good investment,” Luke added. He would know, of course, having made much of his vast fortune in real estate. “I might be interested in it myself if we decide to pass on it for the resort.”
They discussed the details for another hour. Before his family left, one thing had been decided: They wanted to meet with Ree.
Dane called her as he sat on the end of his dock watching the sun set on Lake Michigan. He held a cordless phone in one hand and a long-necked bottle of beer in the other. Minus the phone, it was the way he unwound most summer evenings, after his run, weather allowing. But he felt keyed up now as he punched in Ree’s number and waited for her to answer.
“Hello?”
Just the sound of her voice sent his blood pumping. And so he said tersely, “Keep next Tuesday free. We’d like to tour the property before making any decisions.”
He thought he heard her exhale sharply and there was no mistaking the emotion in her tone when she replied, “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“No need to thank me. It’s business,” he said. “You have something I’m interested in, Ree.”
After he hung up, the truth of those words teased him late into the night.
CHAPTER FIVE
REE angled the chairs a little more toward the fireplace, stood back to look, sighed and repositioned them again. She had less than an hour before the Conlans and Luke Banning arrived and the fate of her home was decided. Keeping busy hadn’t kept her mind off that fact, but it did have its benefits.
She’d spent the long holiday weekend in a frenzy of cleaning, polishing and waxing. As a result, every surface in the huge old house gleamed. The outside had been tidied as well. She had mowed the vast lawn, sweating off a couple pounds in the process since the temperatures reached into the eighties that day and the only mower that she’d been able to start was a push one, and not of the self-propelled variety, either. Despite the energy-sapping heat, she’d also weeded the flower beds. Not much was left blooming at this point besides sedum and some mums, and she regretted not having more annuals to provide color.
The gardens, however, were the least of her worries when it came to the outside. The paint was peeling on the home’s white exterior, the railing that ran around the vast porch was missing half a dozen spindles and some of the floorboards were warped and rotted.
Surely the Conlans, who had bought historic Saybrook’s and painsta
kingly restored the resort to its former splendor, would see past the Victorian’s deficiencies to its undeniable structural beauty.
She still couldn’t believe they were coming. When Dane had called the previous Friday, she had fully expected him to say they would be passing on her offer. Instead he’d told her Saybrook’s other owners wanted a firsthand look at the premises. Her mood had been swinging between relief and trepidation ever since.
With five minutes to go, she steeped tea in her grandmother’s silver service and arranged china cups on a matching polished tray, which she set on a table in the front parlor. She didn’t figure Dane was much of a tea drinker, but she was going for effect, setting the stage, and hoping to show her guests what was possible.
When the doorbell chimed, she smoothed down the front of her dress. She’d gone for something floral, with a full skirt and capped sleeves, deciding the rigid lines of her one and only power suit wouldn’t serve her well today. Checking her appearance one last time in the foyer mirror, she opened the door with a smile affixed on her face.
Dane stood on the porch. The last time they had faced one another over the threshold, he’d been drenched to the skin, his clothing torn and soiled. On this day, he wore a snowy-white shirt tucked into a pair of tailored dark trousers. His tie was loosened, the cuffs of his sleeves rolled up as if he were eager to get down to business.
“Hello, Ree.”
“Hello.”
She stepped back, but he didn’t come inside. Instead he crossed to one of the padded wicker chairs on the porch. “The others should be along anytime. They stopped in town. Audra had to, um, use a restroom.”
“I hear that’s common for pregnant women.”
He made a dismissive noise. “I wouldn’t know.”
She settled into the chair next to his. “Me, either.”
Dane motioned toward the door. “Will anyone else be joining us today?”
“No. I…I didn’t think to hire a lawyer or real estate agent to represent me in the sale.”
“That’s not who I meant,” he said.
“Who else would I invite?” she asked, baffled.
Dane just shook his head. “Never mind.”
Another vehicle pulled up the driveway a moment later, thankfully interrupting the awkward silence. Introductions were made.
“This is Ali Banning. She’s a partner in Conlan Development.”
“I’m also his sister,” the slender brunette said on a wink. “We met the day you came to the resort, although I didn’t catch your name then and I didn’t realize you were the one who had taken such good care of my brother after his accident.”
“Oh.” She flushed, unsure how to respond, especially since Dane was scowling. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Banning.”
“It’s just Ali, please. And the pleasure is mine. Thank you for what you did for Dane.”
“It was no trouble,” she replied awkwardly.
“This is my husband, Luke, and my sister, Audra Ridley.”
“I’ll add my thanks to Ali’s. We’re very grateful for what you did,” Audra said.
“Give it a rest,” Ree thought she heard Dane mutter under his breath.
“By the way, vanity requires that I make sure you know I’m pregnant, not fat.”
Even with her abdomen rounded with child, she was still one of the most striking and fashionable women Ree had ever encountered.
“I love your shoes,” she found herself saying as she eyed the pointy-toed flats. She hadn’t had the opportunity to shop much in the past several years, but that didn’t mean she didn’t know what she liked. “Italian, right?”
“Of course. Great, aren’t they?” Audra pursed her lips then. “They’re a little tight these days. I’ve heard rumors that your feet grow with childbirth. I’m praying to God that’s not so.”
“And I’m praying it is,” Ali said on a smirk. Holding out one foot, she added, “We’re the same size. At least we were.”
“As enlightening as I find this topic, we’re not here to discuss footwear,” Dane interrupted.
Even though his impatient tone had the sisters glancing over sharply Ree knew he was right.
“I want to thank you all for coming. I know you’re busy businesspeople and I really appreciate your taking time out of your schedule today,” she said. Her hands had begun to shake, and so she clasped them in front of her. “I have refreshments inside or I can show you around the grounds first.”
“Let’s go with the grand tour,” Audra said with a wink. “Once I sit down, it’s hard for me to get back up.”
They walked the perimeter of the house. Despite Ree’s best efforts, nothing could hide the obvious neglect, so she tried to draw their eyes away from it and have them focus instead on the home’s finer points.
“There are several styles of Victorian—Gothic Revival, Italianate, Romanesque, to name just a few. This one is actually a Queen Anne, which is probably the most popular of the designs and the one that comes readily to mind when people think of Victorian architecture.”
She pointed to the gingerbread trim and stained-glass windows that reflected the afternoon sun.
“Queen Anne’s are known for their excessive use of adornment and decoration. You’ll notice the patterned brickwork on the chimneys and the detailed shingle design over the eyebrow dormer and on the outside of the tower.”
“You seem to know a lot about Victorian architecture,” Ali said.
Her grin was sheepish. “Actually I went to the library over the weekend and read up on it. I wanted to be prepared for your visit.”
“It shows,” Luke said. “And we appreciate it. Right, Dane?”
Dane merely shrugged.
“Wow. Talk about an incredible view.” Audra said and meandered toward the beach, one hand supporting the underside of her belly. The rest of them followed.
“It’s gorgeous,” Ali seconded.
Waves crested white on the lake’s sapphire surface. Far out, Ree could just make out the silhouette of a freighter that was heading in the direction of the Straits of Mackinac.
“I see lots of potential here. I can picture a boardwalk, lantern lighting, maybe even a string quartet set up over there to provide music on summer evenings.” Ali pointed to where the high grass that shot up from the dunes waved in the breeze.
“Dancing under the stars,” Audra mused. “Oh, and just look at that gazebo. It doesn’t look very old.”
“It’s not, relatively speaking. My grandparents had it built when I was in grade school.”
They walked there next.
“I bet you spent a lot of time here as a girl,” Audra said, stepping up into the multisided structure. Benches lined the inside walls, each one padded with pillows whose floral print was now faded and stained.
“Yes, I did,” she said, lost in the memory. “I used to pretend it was a lighthouse and I was the beacon’s keeper, helping those who were lost find their way home.”
Of course, the person she’d hoped to steer home had never returned. But someone else had found his way to her door.
Dane’s gaze tangled with her for a moment before he looked away. Then he frowned. “Is that a stone cross over there?”
“Marble, actually.” And imported from her grandparents’ native Italy. “It…it can come down, of course. It’s a memorial.”
“For whom?” Ali asked.
Dane answered before Regina could. “Your mother?”
“Yes.” For the others’ benefit, she added, “She died when I was six.”
Dane’s gaze turned soft with understanding. “She died here, didn’t she.”
Ree eyed the tall marker that had stood a dozen yards up from the highwater mark on the beach for more than twenty years. It was weathered now having been battered by ice and rain and baked in the hot summer sun. But she could still recall how shiny and cool the marble had felt under her hands the day her grandparents had had it installed on the first anniversary of their daughter’s death.<
br />
“Yes. She drowned.” And in her mind’s eye she watched Angela Bellini walk purposefully into the surf and disappear beneath the waves.
“How awful,” Audra said.
“That had to be hard for you,” Ali added.
Luke, who’d known his own share of tragedy as a child, murmured a soft, “I’m sorry.”
As Dane watched, though, Ree shrugged off his family’s condolences.
“It was a long time ago,” she said. Yet he didn’t get the feeling that made the loss any easier to accept.
For the first time since arriving on her doorstep that day, he allowed himself to consider how hard this meeting had to be for her. This was her home. It held all of her memories, good and bad. And she was selling it. She would be leaving it to live somewhere else.
He touched her arm. The contact was fleeting but intended to offer comfort. She turned in surprise and something flickered briefly in those dark eyes that had beguiled him from the first. Gratitude, he told himself. That’s all he saw. He didn’t have a right to want to see anything more.
“Why don’t you show us the inside now,” he said.
For the next forty-five minutes, Ree led them on a room-by-room tour. Several of the upstairs bedrooms were not furnished, but the hardwood floors were polished and the corners were free of cobwebs. She kept a clean house, and a homey one. That much he remembered from before. But on this day Dane found himself glancing around, looking beyond the doilies and knickknacks of the front parlor for signs of the man Ree was married to. He spied none. Not so much as a sports magazine or pair of work boots or a framed photograph.
Even in the bedroom where Dane had awoken to sunshine the morning after near-tragedy—the bedroom that Ree had said was hers—he spotted nothing particularly masculine. And he looked, scanning the top of the dresser for cuff links or other small clues he might have missed the last time, and glancing inside the closet after Ali opened it. Only women’s clothing hung inside. He attributed his interest to basic curiosity. It was only natural to wonder about a man whose wife chose not to use his last name, a man who did not share his wife’s home. Something here didn’t add up.
His sisters apparently noticed that, too.