Always

by Carol Rose

  Cole picked up his phone, punching in the number of his broker. When you paid employees as well as he did, they didn't mind getting phone calls after midnight.

  The phone rang several times before a groggy voice answered.

  "Brinkman."

  "Yes, sir." His employee's voice became more alert.

  "I want you to accept Ms. Prescott's counteroffer on the house—"

  "But, but, sir," Brinkman sputtered. "I think we can get it for a lower price. If you'll just let me work on it a little longer—"

  "No," Cole said. "The counteroffer is still below market value. It's a good deal."

  "Yes, sir, I know," the other man agreed with a promptness that bordered on sycophancy. "But we're dealing with the granddaughter now, not the old man's servant. It's always easier to bluff women into a lower price—"

  "Brinkman."

  "I could just tell her that the market is down everywhere. You know, sir, the usual stuff. Point out that not many people are interested in a huge decaying house with ungodly utility bills."

  "Brinkman?"

  "Yes, sir?"

  "Listen to me carefully. Accept her offer." Cole's fingers drummed on the steering wheel. He'd chosen Brinkman to handle this deal specifically because he didn't have any other ties to the man. When you were high profile and wanted something done in secrecy, such precautions were necessary.

  But the longer he worked with the man, the less he liked Brinkman. Good credentials couldn't take the place of intelligent experience.

  "Fine, sir." The other man's voice became clipped. "I'll take care of it in the morning. But I'm sure she'll want to check it out with the old man. She told me she would if we accepted."

  "That's okay," Cole said. "As long as we get this thing tied up as soon as possible."

  ~~~********~~~

  Six

  Elinor drew a deep breath and raised her hand to knock on Oakleigh's heavy wooden door. She stood in the deep gallery that blocked the early-summer sun, creating a cool respite. Blocking her memories of Cole dancing her past these massive columns, Elinor made herself focus on the meeting ahead.

  After two years of disregarding her presence in Bayville, her grandfather had requested to see her. She'd almost dropped the phone when Charlie called.

  As she stood there waiting for her knock to be answered, she wondered what to expect. Would her grandfather finally give her some direction regarding the sale of Oakleigh? She hoped so, because she was hesitant to solve the dilemma on her own. Despite the lack of closeness in their relationship, she felt a responsibility for the old man.

  On the other side of the door, she heard a bolt being drawn. The door creaked open revealing Charlie's morose, deeply lined face. Every time Elinor saw Charlie, she wondered how much attending her grandfather for forty years had contributed to the crankiness of his attendant's habitual expression.

  "Come in, Miss Elinor. He's waiting." The old servant pulled back the door.

  "Thank you, Charlie. How is he today?" she asked, following him across the wide hall to what had once been a front parlor.

  "He's fine," Charlie replied as he always did.

  The parlor doors had been thrown open this morning and the blinds drawn back at the windows. For the first time, Elinor didn't feel like she was groping her way across to her grandfather. He sat in his usual chair, but there was an alertness to his face she'd never seen.

  The difference in him surprised her, and it was several seconds before she noticed Cole sitting in a chair a few feet away.

  Cole watched Elinor's reaction as she met his eyes, glancing away quickly. He hadn't seen her since their argument several nights ago at her cottage. The sight of her set off a thrumming of response in him. He wanted to smooth the wariness off her face and promise her he'd make everything better, but he made no move toward her.

  "Grandfather, I understood that you wanted to see me?" She hesitated.

  "I do," the old man answered testily. "Sit down." He indicated an empty chair between he and Cole.

  "Is there some reason why Mr. Whittier is here also?" she ventured.

  Cole bit back a smile. He'd wondered the same thing ever since receiving Charlie's message that Daniel wanted him to drop by at one that afternoon.

  "I can have visitors, can't I?" Daniel Prescott snapped in a rusty voice. A sly smile crept over his sunken features. "I wanted to see the millionaire for myself."

  "Of course," she murmured, clearly humoring the old man's forgetfulness.

  It had been several weeks since Elinor had found Cole lurking in the garden. Maybe Daniel really didn't remember meeting him before. But Cole doubted it. There was an almost amused gleam in the old man's eyes. He looked more alert today, and yet weaker.

  "I want to talk to you about some things," Daniel announced in a determined voice.

  "I'm glad," she assured him.

  "You're not married, are you?" Daniel stated, obviously knowing that she wasn't

  "No," she answered hesitantly, searching the old man's face again.

  "Well, you ought to be," Daniel declared, thumping the arm of his chair with a gnarled hand. "A woman doesn't need to be alone. There are too many scalawags running around."

  Catching Elinor's furtive glance in his direction, Cole couldn't resist the humor of the situation. What was Daniel up to?

  "So why haven't you married?" her grandfather continued, oblivious to the byplay. "Your good-for-nothing father put you off men?"

  Cole squelched a laugh as Elinor drew in a deep breath, clearly trying to hold her temper in check. Didn't Daniel have any idea how embarrassing it was for her to be questioned this way with Cole as a spectator?

  "Can we talk about this some other time, Grandfather?" she requested, her voice even.

  "No, we can't," Daniel said irritably. "Might not be another time."

  Elinor's protest seemed to spring out automatically. "But you're obviously feeling better. We have plenty of time."

  Daniel's face turned grim. "I don't know about that, but I have business to attend to." He paused for long minutes, his eyes staring off at a memory that no one else in the room could see. "This offer to buy Oakleigh ..." His voice trailed off.

  "Yes?"

  He leaned back in his chair, laughing soundlessly. "Things always turn out different than you think, Granddaughter." His eyes lit briefly on Cole. "People you never think you'll see again show their faces when you least expect them."

  All Cole's systems went on full alert. The old scoundrel's meaning couldn't be clearer. Had he recognized Cole from the first? More importantly, had Daniel figured out who had made the offer on the house?

  Laughter shook Daniel's frail body again. "Maybe it's for the best. The strongest always rise to the top."

  Elinor leaned forward in her chair, obviously trying to make sense of his words.

  "I always was a stubborn bastard," Daniel commented without regret. "A hard man. But I had to be. There were people all around us—the best families—who were selling out in the twenties."

  His wrinkled face sneered. "They called it the Great Depression. Said we were all done in, that no one could make the land pay anymore. But I showed them. I stuck it out." He clutched the arms of his chair with clawlike fingers, his voice rising. "I had to be tough to keep it all going. Everyone was counting on me."

  "It's all right, Grandfather." Elinor reached to put a soothing hand on his. "I'm sure they understood you were only doing what you had to do."

  Her tender heart was clearly touched by his words. Elinor had lived with the results of Daniel's mistakes. But she didn't seem to have any difficulty extending forgiveness to the grandfather she'd never really known.

  "No, they didn't," Daniel disagreed unexpectedly. "They never understood. But I had to do what I did. Even with your daddy." His fingers worried the frayed upholstery fabric.

  Cole watched the play of emotion over Elinor's face. This was probably the closest Daniel would ever come to an apology for disowning his
son. From everything he'd heard, Cole didn't doubt that Elinor's father got what he deserved. But she had suffered, too, from the divided family and she'd been blameless.

  "Jeffrey gave me more grief than ten sons had a right to," Daniel declared, bitterness reverberating in his voice, "with his gambling and wasting money like it was water. My money, of course. He didn't earn an honest penny in his life. And he never could hold his whiskey."

  The anger smoothed out of Daniel's face as he sighed deeply. "Still, he was trying to do right by your mama when he found out you were on the way. I shouldn't have kicked them out then. And I should have been nicer to your mama. She was a sourpuss of a woman, but she had her reasons, married to Jeffrey and trying to raise you." He shook his head, his eyes staring sightlessly again. "Even she couldn't save Jeffrey."

  "No," Elinor agreed softly. "And she couldn't seem to let go of him, either."

  Had she known her mother was pregnant with her when her parents married? Cole wondered. She didn't seem shocked.

  Daniel turned to look at her. "I heard your mother died a few years ago. I'm sorry."

  Elinor nodded, blinking suddenly moist eyes. "So was I. I miss her a lot."

  The old man reached out then, his unsteady hand resting a moment on hers.

  The silence in the room seemed deafening as she smiled waveringly at her grandfather. Cole sat silently observing their interaction. Elinor seemed to have forgotten his presence in the moment of reunion with Daniel, but the old man kept shooting him glances. What the heck was he up to?

  "Grandfather," Elinor ventured when he let go of her hand and slumped back in his chair. "What do you want me to do about selling Oakleigh? The buyer has set a deadline for your answer."

  "I don't give a damn about deadlines," Daniel said irascibly, his gaze stopping on Cole. "I'm too old to scare easy."

  Cole stared at him. That message was loud and clear. The old man had put the clues together. He knew Cole was the buyer and he hadn't blocked the sale. The realization stunned Cole. Was Daniel just leading him on, dangling the bait before drawing it back?

  "But what do you want me to do about the offer?" Elinor leaned forward. "This is your home."

  "You don't know Oakleigh, do you, Elinor?" His eyes glazed over in reminiscence. "I grew up here. Played Civil War in the orchard and hide-and-seek in the attic."

  "I'd have liked to grow up here," Elinor admitted.

  "You could have grown up near here if your daddy would have settled down." Daniel's bitterness was back. "That boy was born looking for a pot of gold."

  "Grandfather," Elinor said, "I really need to know. What do you want me to do about the house? Have you decided?"

  "I'm not going to decide," the old man said abruptly. "I'm leaving it up to you. Do what you want with it. I won't be around long enough for it to matter. And I can see that both you and Oakleigh will be in good hands."

  Cole frowned. Elinor and the house would be in good hands? What the hell did he mean by that?

  Daniel sank back into his chair then, seeming to shrink, his thin eyelids drifting down as Elinor watched him in confusion.

  Charlie came back into the room then, as if on cue. "I'll show you both to the door now, Miss Elinor."

  Elinor stood on the gallery with Cole, minutes later, feeling confused and frustrated.

  A sense of constraint fell on her now that they were alone. Their last meeting had been too angry, too unresolved, for her to slip again into a comfortable conversation with Cole.

  You know me better than you think, he'd said at the end of their argument. She'd thought about that statement many times in the last two days The words rang like a confession, even if his manner hadn't. Had he been romancing her to get what he wanted?

  "I have no idea why he asked you to come," she said finally as they crossed the wide gallery.

  "He wanted to see the millionaire." Cole laughed as if he knew some secret joke.

  "You could have left," she said waspishly. "The conversation had nothing to do with you."

  "You think so?" He slanted her a glance. "It seemed terribly relevant to me."

  Elinor shot him an irritated glance, annoyed at his flippant attitude. "How do you figure that?"

  Cole smiled at her lovingly. "I'm interested in anything that has to do with you."

  Acute breathlessness attacked her, increasing her irritation. She hated herself for wanting to take him seriously.

  The visit with Daniel left her feeling shaken, both sad and tender. For the first time, he'd responded to her as a grandfather.

  His disclosures left her with a sense of connection that she hadn't had since her mother died. But the problem of what to do with Oakleigh loomed ever larger. The buyer's deadline was the day after tomorrow.

  Her grandfather seemed confident that she knew what to do with the plantation. A puzzling circumstance, since he didn't really know her.

  He was relying on her and she wasn't sure what to do.

  "I wish he'd been clear enough to tell me what he wanted me to do about selling Oakleigh," she murmured, navigating the crumbled surface of the front walk.

  "He was perfectly lucid about that," Cole said flatly.

  "Then you must have heard something that I didn't." Elinor stopped on the sidewalk, glaring at him with frustration.

  "He said to do what you thought best," Cole reminded her, his face enigmatic. "So do it."

  "That's easy for you to say," she snapped. "But this isn't just a house we're talking about. It's something you wouldn't understand. Oakleigh is my grandfather's life, not just another business deal."

  "I can't believe this!" Elinor bounded out of her chair as if she'd been branded.

  "Believe what?" Blinking, Daisy looked up from her section of Elinor's morning paper.

  "This!" Holding the front page of the Bayville Sentinel with rage-quivering fingers, Elinor slapped the paper.

  The two women had been sitting at the breakfast table in the cottage kitchen sharing a quiet cup of coffee.

  "I can't believe the gall of that man! He named me as trustee!" Elinor shrieked, throwing the paper on the table.

  "This must have something to do with Cole," Daisy commented with certainty. "That man sets you off like dynamite."

  Ignoring her friend, Elinor stared into space, her mind working at a furious pace. "I'm not going to let him get away with it. I can see what the snake's up to even if no one else can. And I'm going to tell him a thing or two about it."

  "I bet you will," Daisy said, shaking her head in sad amusement as Elinor grabbed the paper off the table and bolted out of the kitchen, her robe billowing around her.

  Taking the stairs at a gallop, Elinor headed to her room. She dressed in record time, which was no mean feat considering that she was never one to linger over her wardrobe.

  Fastening her mother's small circle brooch on the lapel of her short peach jacket a few minutes later, Elinor scooped her purse off the dressing table and headed back down the stairs.

  "Lock the door behind you, Daisy!" she called out, retrieving her bulging briefcase from her office.

  "Happy hunting!" Daisy called out from the kitchen.

  Elinor slammed the front door and headed across the gallery, her heels sounding a hollow cadence on the wood. She reached her car, slung her briefcase into the backseat and slid beneath the wheel.

  Setting her up as trustee of a million-dollar fund without saying a word to her about it first.

  Cole Whittier was a snake. This last stunt proved everything she'd ever accused him of. And she planned to tell him that to his face, as soon as she quit crying.

  Why did it hurt so much that he'd turned out to be everything she suspected? She'd known the pitfalls from the first, but that hadn't stopped her from falling for his charm. It was his laughter that snared her first, she knew, the amused gleam in his eyes that invited her to join in the joke.

  Only now the joke was on her. She'd lost her heart to the very man who could least be trusted with it.


  Pulling her car up in front of the town hall, minutes later, Elinor turned off the engine. Drawing in a few gulps of air to calm herself, she tried to wipe away the traces of tears on her face. A fast makeup retouch was called for, and she accomplished it as quickly as she could with shaking fingers.

  She got out of the car, the newspaper clutched in her hand and she barely remembered to put change in the parking meter. Fragments of accusations formed in her brain as she crossed the pavement. She would give it to Cole Whittier with both barrels.

  She'd come to the town hall because Mayor Stephens had offered Cole temporary space in an unused office in the building. Another indication of the lack of official objectivity in the Whittier plant negotiations, Elinor thought to herself, fuming as she entered the building.

  She had no idea if Cole would even be in his office at this time in the morning. He'd never seemed terribly slothful, but men like him made their own rules.

  "Good morning, Elly," the mayor's secretary called as she passed by.

  "Good morning, Mrs. Nutt," Elinor answered, barely registering the woman's surprise when she didn't stop to chat.

  Her heels clicked belligerently on the tiled floor as she marched down the hall.

  Cole's temporary office was located at the back of the building. Several secretaries glanced up in surprise as Elinor passed swiftly through a larger room that Cole's office opened onto. A makeshift sign had been tacked to a half-open door. Whittier Incorporated.

  Elinor rapped firmly on the door, the movement making it swing open.

  "Elinor!" Cole looked up in surprise. He sat behind a beat-up wooden desk that had clearly never seen better days. His jacket lay thrown across a nearby chair, and his pristine white shirt, sleeves rolled up, was open at the collar.

  He looked so strong and industrious that she had to pause for a fraction of a second to regain her momentum. Her fingers curled around the newspaper in her hand.