Hidden Hills

by Jannette Spann

  “But most men…”

  “I’m not most men.”

  Her chin quivered, and even though she blinked hard, the thick lashes weren’t much of a dam.

  He searched frantically for a handkerchief to catch the first wave. “Don’t cry.”

  “I’m not.” She hiccupped, ignoring his handkerchief to wipe her face with the back of her hand.

  “If you say so.” The storm had passed with a couple of swipes under her eyes. His laughter bubbled up when she hiccupped again, and again, and again.

  She tensed at his side. “I fail to see the—” hic “— humor in being in debt up past my eyeballs!”

  “It’s not that.” He squeezed her in a reassuring hug. “Feel better?”

  She nodded, using his handkerchief to blow her nose.

  Unable to resist, Jake tucked a strand of smooth auburn hair behind her left ear and saw the golden hoop dangling from the lobe. He shifted her head to admire the way they moved.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Just checking to see if steam’s still rising.”

  “You idiot.” She was grinning when she shoved his hand away. He figured it was a good sign, but then sadness seemed to wash over her when the memories poured out. “Mitch loved this place more than life itself: the house, the land, and the solitude.”

  “But I see no reason to bite off more than you can chew.”

  “Look around. His great-great-grandfather built this house before the Civil War, and the Yankees never found it.”

  His curiosity was stirred. “How could he hide a house of this size?”

  “There aren’t any fields, never have been. Julius Wills made his money in railroads. He only cleared enough land to hold the house and barn. The rest of the lumber and everything else they hauled in by wagon. When the war broke out, he painted the house dark green and brown including the windows and roof so they wouldn’t reflect in the sun. Then they tore out the bridge, planted fast-growing trees and bushes in the wagon tracks, and moved to town to wait out the war.”

  “And nobody let it slip about the house being here?”

  “Not a soul,” she said, warming to the story. “He promised the townspeople if the house survived, he’d bring the railroad to town.”

  Jake nodded. “Wills’ Junction. I wondered about the name. So the old man made good on his word?”

  “Exactly. And Mitch gave his word to Grandpa Wills. He’d never let this place leave the family.”

  Without thinking, Jake reached for her hand, giving it a comforting pat. He understood — about family, loyalty, and a man’s word.

  “It’s a lot of house for a family of four,” he said, her hand still resting in his. “Were you planning to have more little girls?”

  She relaxed for the first time in ages. “Girls and boys. We were foster parents.”

  “What about now?”

  “They’ve asked,” she replied, regret evident in her tone of voice. “But I had to refuse. It’s just too hard on my own.”

  “If I had a magic wand, I’d wave it to make things right for you,” he said, realizing it was the truth.

  Desperation tinged her voice. “If you had a magic wand, I’d wrestle you for it and make things right myself.”

  “Now there’s an idea.” He wiggled his brows, smiling when her cheeks glowed. A woman as refreshing as Charlotte was a rarity in his world. She reminded him of a soft rose tossed into a river. The current could carry her along, but it couldn’t sink her.

  “What about your mother-in-law?”

  “Ellen doesn’t want it,” she replied. “And as for Mark, his brother — well, let’s just say you couldn’t pay him to live here.”

  “So, if you’ve bought the Parkers’ house, then you must have a buyer lined up.” He was beginning to think her problems weren’t as bad as she thought. Then again, the upkeep on the mansion would be overwhelming, even for him.

  “Not a nibble in the last six months. And it appraises for much more than I’m asking. Are you sure you want to know everything?”

  A grim smile tightened the lines around his mouth. It was even worse than she’d let on. “I think I’d be lying if I said no.”

  She hesitated before taking the plunge. “Now, you’ve got to remember I’ve thought long and hard about this.” At his nod, she continued, “I’m only renting the Parker house until this one sells. Then I’ll buy it, and Mrs. Wilson will make a commission off both properties. It’s a good deal.”

  “Sure,” he agreed. “If this one sells.”

  “It’s got to! Just the commission from this one alone will be more than most people make in a year.”

  “How long are you talking about?”

  “Maybe five months?”

  “You’ve had no offers, but you expect her to sell it right off the bat. Have you even thought about being realistic?”

  “Something’s got to work. I can only afford three more payments.”

  “What difference will three payments make?”

  “If I’m lucky, the bank will let it slide another three months before they foreclose.”

  Never in his thirty-six years had he met anyone in such desperate need of a lesson in finance. Her logic amazed him.

  “Charlotte.” He tried to phrase his suggestion so as not to set her off again. “Why not let the bank foreclose now and keep the money?”

  “Because I can’t! Mitch borrowed thirty thousand from his parents when we bought this place. If I let the bank foreclose, I’ll still owe them money.”

  “Then why not declare bankruptcy?”

  “Because it might sell,” she said. “Don’t you understand? I need it to sell.”

  He rubbed her shoulder for comfort. “I can understand, but promise you’ll talk to me before you let the bank foreclose.”

  According to Ralph, the family had money — big money. The father was a judge, the other brother was a doctor, and the mother could be a social butterfly for all he knew. Anger surged through him. Not at the woman sitting beside him, but at the man she’d married. His mind raced ahead. “What about life insurance?”

  “Mitch borrowed against it too.” Her eyes were as sad as her smile. “I find it hard to believe you’ve ever been in this kind of mess.”

  “You’re right. I haven’t.” He closed the distance between them to lay a comforting hand on her shoulder. “And I can’t understand how he could do it to you.”

  She cut him short. “Mitch worked hard, and he was a good husband and father. Dropping dead at thirty-two wasn’t part of his plan.”

  “Oh, come on now — I didn’t mean…” More tears ran down her cheeks. His arms enfolded her, letting her cry on his shoulder. Whether they were tears of grief or just frustration, he wasn’t sure. She’d finally trusted him enough to confide her troubles. Her tears spent, she tried shoving him away, but he wasn’t going anywhere. This was where he belonged.

  “I’m sorry, Charlotte,” he murmured softly, rubbing her back. “Something will turn up. It always does.”

  He wanted to take advantage of the situation, but it wasn’t the right time. Reluctantly, he let go when she pulled back to wipe her eyes.

  “I keep telling myself that,” she said, blowing her nose again on his soppy handkerchief.

  “Have you talked to your father-in-law about your situation?”

  “No, and I’m not going to.” Her shoulders straightened. The momentary lapse in self-control was gone, and her resolve appeared stronger than ever. “I’m a grown woman with two little girls to raise, and with God’s help, I’ll do it.”

  Jake remembered what he’d been through. “I admire your spunk, but if it hadn’t been for both sets of grandparents helping after Betty died, I couldn’t have made it.”

  “My parents have helped. Mom stayed the first six months after Mitch passed away to take care of us. I would have been lost without her. And it isn’t as if his parents have ignored us. They’re wonderful to the girls, but I refuse to dump my proble
ms in their laps.”

  Outside the window, his boys were wrestling, no doubt trying to impress the girls. He pecked on the window, motioning for them to cut it out. Being the oldest, Jeremy had always been the leader and the most dominant. Once an idea settled in his head, it was hard to get it out. Jake wondered if Charlotte’s husband had been that way.

  “Your in-laws must have known about the heavy debt on the estate. Couldn’t they have persuaded your husband not to buy since he obviously couldn’t afford…”

  “Now wait a minute. I didn’t say we couldn’t afford it. Had Mitch lived, there would’ve been some tight years, but we would’ve made it.”

  Being a tightwad, he wanted to argue the point, but he knew better than to say anything else. After all, he didn’t know the guy. Then it hit him.

  “Your father-in-law persuaded Mitch to buy it, didn’t he?”

  Her sharp glance indicated more to him than she was willing to admit. She shot to her feet, pacing back and forth. “The fact is, we didn’t buy it in the normal sense. Mitch inherited the estate along with its debts and stipulations. He died before we got around to refinancing.”

  Jake relaxed on the piano bench, intrigued by what she’d said. “Go on.”

  “I don’t know where to begin.”

  He gestured for her to join him on the bench, pleased she was opening up about herself. “Why not start with his grandpa?”

  “That would be Charles Wills. He was Ellen’s dad, and he never cared for Tom McGregor. The old man said Tom wanted this house. When Grandpa discovered they were planning to marry, he banned Tom from seeing her. A month later they eloped, making him furious, and even though Ellen was his only child, he practically disowned her.”

  “Did they ever make up?”

  “Eventually, after the boys came along, but his opinion of Tom only got worse.”

  “Sounds like a bad situation.”

  “It was. Mitch said his grandpa wanted him and Mark here so they wouldn’t spend too much time with their dad.”

  “Did the old man actually say that?”

  Charlotte shook her head. “Not in so many words, but the judge is a workaholic, so they wouldn’t have seen him anyway.”

  “And their mother, where did she fit in?”

  “Mitch didn’t say.”

  “At least their grandpa spent time with them.”

  “They were in grammar school when their dad began to make a name for himself in politics. Grandpa said Tom was dirty, and his grandsons weren’t going to be a part of it.”

  Jake was beginning to like the old man. “So what were the stipulations to his inheritance?”

  “Mitch would pay all the debts, without selling off any of the land for five years, and Tom McGregor could never own any part of the estate as long as it’s in the family.” She answered as if quoting from the will itself.

  “So Ellen didn’t inherit, but what about Mark?”

  She ran her hand over the piano, wiping dust away. “Mark told his grandpa he’d sell the place to the highest bidder.”

  “Does the will say you can’t sell it to his mother? It could be in her name and not his.”

  “Ellen doesn’t want it.”

  “But what if Mitch refused? There’s no law saying he had to accept.”

  “It would have gone into a trust for our girls. No one could have touched it until Maggie reached her twenty-fifth birthday. Grandpa’s attorney, William Grant, would have been allowed to sell the land to pay off the debt. I tried to have it put into the trust after Mitch died, but since we had already accepted responsibility for the debt, the attorneys said it couldn’t be done.”

  It sounded strange, but family disputes usually didn’t make sense. Why did Ellen not want to keep her parents’ estate unless — and there it was, plain as the nose on his face. He had no proof, and it was just speculation on his part, but if the McGregors waited for the foreclosure, they could buy the place for what the bank had against it, and Charlotte would still owe the thirty thousand.

  If he was right, it confirmed the tales he’d heard about the judge. He could only pray God would give them wisdom to stop the McGregors. Keeping his suspicions to himself, he pointed Charlotte toward the door, giving her a gentle push. They needed a change of scenery, and he wanted to know firsthand if Hidden Hills was worth fighting for. “You promised a tour, remember?”

  ****

  Although Charlotte no longer called the old mansion home, there was a certain pride in showing it to someone as attentive as Jake. It was nice having a man actually listen to her.

  Leaving the music room they entered the formal dining area, where everything was of massive proportions, from the china cabinet measuring ten feet long by eight feet high, to the mahogany table with eighteen matching chairs. A hutch and armoire filled the other end of the room. She hesitated at the sound of the captain’s chair scrubbing against the floor when Jake claimed his place at the head of the table, his expression reminding her of a kid in a candy store.

  “Miss Charlotte, would you join me as I gaze upon my cotton crop?”

  She laughed, shaking her head at his ridiculous Rhett Butler impression. “I’ve told you, there aren’t any cotton fields — never were.”

  He reared back, gently tweaking an imaginary mustache. “I could go for this Old South stuff. Tell me, woman, what’ve you done with our young’uns?”

  The man was a flirt, and their young’uns, as he’d so aptly put it, were chasing one another throughout the empty rooms. She stopped in her tracks when she heard Bruce refer to the house as a museum. Without their personal belongings, the house was as cold and impersonal as one.

  “I’ll bet this house has touched a lot of lives over the years,” he said, when they were alone again. “Can you imagine the neighbors arriving in their horse-drawn carriages for fancy Christmas parties?”

  “I’m afraid I missed the antebellum era.” Her hand slid along the length of the china cabinet. Memories of Grandpa and Uncle Eli were connected to the pleasant meals she’d shared in this room. “But I’ll never forget my first visit. Grandpa was so proud of his home. He gave me the grand tour, and I loved sitting by the fire, listening to him tell stories about his childhood. With it being so far from town, his greatest fear was it might catch fire.”

  Jake glanced around the room at the vintage wall paper. “I can understand the concern. This place would be gone before firefighters could get here. And the bridge — there’s no way it will hold up a fire truck.”

  “Grandpa said the lightning rods on the roof were here when he was a boy, but he replaced the electrical wiring throughout the entire house, bringing it up to code. He also installed a sprinkler system on both floors and under the roof.”

  Jake’s eyes were drawn toward the ceiling where twelve inch crown molding circled the room. “Why the roof?”

  “He said lightning usually strikes the roof.”

  “It sounds like the old man was quite a guy,” he said, rising from his chair. “But I want to know how he got the pipes in the first floor ceilings without having to refinish the plaster.”

  “By removing some boards in the upstairs floor.”

  Jake eyed the ceiling again. “It makes sense. A sprinkler system sounds expensive. Is there enough water pressure to run it?”

  “Not only enough for the house.” She led the way to a set of French doors opening into a pool room. “But for six bathrooms — provided you don’t flush them all at the same time. Our water comes from an artesian well. Mitch said his grandpa installed the pool so he’d have a second water supply. We have solar panels on the back side of the roof and an automatic generator to pump water from the pool to the sprinklers, if the power is off.”

  “Why the solar?”

  Charlotte laughed. “You wouldn’t ask if you’d ever tried to swim in water coming straight from an artesian well. Put your hand in the pool.”

  Jake did a quick squat and touched the water. “It’s warm.”

 
“Exactly. Can you imagine what it would cost to heat this much water with gas or electricity?”

  “Are you saying he built all of this just to operate the sprinklers?”

  Her gaze traveled around the room before trying to answer his question. The sculptured ceiling with its carved crown moldings matched the other rooms in the house, but the floors were made of marble. Floor-to-ceiling windows doubled as a wall, and when folded accordion-style, they opened the entire room to the outside. It was easy to see why this house had been the love of Grandpa’s life.

  “I only knew Charles Wills for a few years,” she said, with Jake following her back the way they’d come. She stopped long enough to relock the doors to the pool room to keep the kids safe. “Mitch and I brought the girls to see him a couple of times a week. He was obstinate, opinionated, and his fascination for new technology made him ahead of his time. The girls were crazy about him, and he was like the grandpa I’d never had — I loved him dearly.”

  “Sounds like I missed out by not knowing him.”

  “You would’ve liked him.” She knew it was true. As much interest as Jake had shown in the sprinklers and pool, it seemed the library had stolen his heart. The rows of built-in bookcases filled with an odd assortment of reading materials had drawn him like a magnet. He stopped long enough to finger through some of the older editions.

  “This was Mitch’s home office.” In her mind, she pictured the room as it had been before his death. She’d wanted to keep his computer for their girls, but her father-in-law had been adamant, saying it belonged to the firm.

  She’d given in, as she had on so many things since joining the McGregor family, just to keep the peace. Those days were gone, or would be as soon as she sold the house and repaid the thirty thousand. Her train of thought was interrupted by Jake holding up one of the books.

  “Why are you leaving these behind?”

  “Mitch’s mother wants them.” She wondered why she felt compelled to explain to a stranger, while refusing to acknowledge to herself why she was giving in again. “They belonged to her mother, so by rights they’re hers anyway. I’m supposed to call if I get a prospective buyer so she can remove them.”