by Tami Hoag
She stared at her reflection in the freshly polished mirror above the vanity. The dress was burgundy silk decorated with black jet beads. The thin straps flowed into a V neckline in both the front and the back. The fully pleated skirt fell from a dropped waist to swirl about her calves. It was pure 1920s, an antique in its own right. It was the most beautiful thing she’d worn in ages. And Bryan Hennessy had brought it to her.
Her chest tightened at the thought. He must have slipped in and put it across the foot of the bed while she’d been sleeping. What if she had opened her eyes and turned to look up at him. Her robe might have fallen open, and his gaze would have lowered deliberately-
Rachel gasped in embarrassment. The woman who looked back at her from the mirror wore an expression of uncertainty. Her wide eyes were pansy-purple in the dim light of the room. Soft color rose on her cheekbones. There was a decidedly vulnerable look about her mouth. She didn’t have time to put up her hair again, so she left it to fall down her back in luxurious golden waves. She wondered if Bryan would like it down.
“Oh, Lord,” she said with a groan, squeezing her eyes shut and rubbing at her temples, “what am I going to do about Bryan?”
Somewhere a gong sounded.
“A dinner gong?” she questioned on a laugh. “Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. There isn’t anything ordinary about this house or anyone in it.”
Slipping into a pair of black high-heeled shoes, she gave her reflection one last glance in the mirror and left the room.
She caught sight of Bryan as she began to descend the grand staircase, and her heart vaulted into her throat. Her hand gripping the mahogany banister, she halted on the stairs and stared down at the scene below, where Bryan stood sipping a drink and chatting with a woman Rachel had never seen before.
She had thought him attractive in a rumpled, all-American way. Big and cute with his earnest blue eyes and his tawny hair falling every which way and notes sticking up out of all his pockets. But in a tuxedo he was devastating. Handsome with a capital H. The black jacket hugged his shoulders in a way that nothing off the rack could have. The wings of his shirt collar framed his strong, freshly shaved jaw. His hair looked as if he had actually taken a comb to it. The overall effect was one of intelligence, authority, and money.
He looked completely at ease in formal attire, and that threw Rachel off balance. Would she ever get a handle on who Bryan Hennessy really was? Was he charlatan or scientist? Buffoon or bon vivant? The only thing she knew for certain was that he believed in ghosts and magic, and she would be far better off steering clear of him.
As she resumed her descent of the stairs, she forced her gaze to the woman with the wild mane of dark auburn hair. The light from the chandelier brought out the red in her tresses, surrounding her pixie face with extraordinarily rich color. She had enormous black eyes and an infectious, mischievous smile that seemed vaguely familiar. She was quite lovely despite what she was wearing-a man’s white dress shirt and black necktie over a wildly flowered dirndl skirt and paddock boots.
She glanced up suddenly and grinned with pure delight. “You must be Rachel,” she said, her voice honey-rich with the sounds of the South.
Bryan jerked his head up and stared openly at the woman on the stairs. He felt awed, paralyzed, thrilled-as if he were witnessing some kind of vision. The studs on his shirtfront strained as he tried to take in a deep breath.
Rachel stood on the landing, staring uncertainly back at him, her eyes wide, her hair spread out behind her in a fall of softest gold. The old-fashioned dress she wore bared her angular shoulders and hugged her small breasts just enough to hint at their fullness. With its straight lines and long skirt it was hardly a revealing garment, yet it emphasized her femininity and her own innate sense of class.
Jayne gave him a quick, practiced elbow to the ribs, her smile never wavering. “Bryan Hennessy, I know your mama taught you better manners than this.”
“What?” he asked, looking confused, then he snapped out of it. “Oh, yes. Jayne, this is Addie’s daughter, Rachel Lindquist. Rachel, this is Jayne Jordan Reilly, a friend of mine from college, and a friend of Addie’s as well.”
“I’m so pleased to meet you,” Jayne said, extending her hand. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
“But I arrived only last night,” said Rachel, a little taken aback by the stranger’s warm welcome.
Jayne shrugged, winding an arm through Rachel’s and leading her away from the stairs. “It’s a small town. News travels around here at the speed of light. What a lovely dress. Wherever did you find it?”
“Laid out on my bed,” Rachel said pointedly, her gaze meeting Bryan’s head on. He had the gall to look innocent. “Things have a funny way of turning up in my room.”
“Oh, honey, I’m not at all surprised.” Jayne waved a dainty hand, her purple fingernails flashing in the light from the chandelier. She leaned close to Rachel, her expression intensely serious, as if she were about to confide an enormous secret. “This house is haunted, you know.”
“So I’m told,” Rachel said, managing a polite smile. Her gaze darted to Bryan, flashing her disapproval his way.
“You haven’t been lucky enough to see Wimsey, have you?”
“No, I haven’t had the pleasure.”
Jayne frowned her disappointment. “Too bad. Addie’s the only one who’s actually seen him. My theory is their consciousness coexist on a single plane of understanding, while ours is on a dual plane, which is why we never see him. What do you think?”
Rachel stared at her for a moment, not quite sure how to respond. Jayne, while undeniably sweet, was apparently just as batty as everyone else in Drake House.
“Rachel doesn’t believe in ghosts,” Bryan said, handing her a glass of white wine. His eyes sparkled like sapphires. “Rachel is practical.” He said the word as if it were the name of a strict religious order.
Jayne’s dark eyes widened. She looked from Bryan to Rachel and back. “Oh, my.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come down earlier,” Rachel said, changing the subject. “I’m afraid I dozed off. I meant to help Mother with the meal.”
“Oh, Addie doesn’t cook,” said Bryan.
Her brows pulled together as she looked at him. “What do you mean? Mother used to work nights at a very nice restaurant when we lived in Berkeley. She’s a wonderful cook.”
“Not since the infamous incident of the fish-head soup and chocolate-laxative cake,” Bryan said.
Jayne rolled her eyes in dismay at the memory. “Reverend Macllroy was indisposed for a week.”
Bryan sighed. “Thankfully, the soup filled me up, and I passed on the cake.”
“You ate fish-head soup?” Rachel asked, both incredulous and nauseated at the thought.
“I prefer to think of it as a variation on bouillabaisse. It was hardly the strangest thing ever to cross my palate. A particular dinner in China comes to mind. They do things there with snakes-”
“That shouldn’t be discussed before dinner,” Jayne said firmly, giving him a look of disgust. She took Rachel by the arm again and steered her toward the dining room, interrogating and commenting all the way, her conversation flowing from one topic to the next without pause. “I think it’s just wonderful that you’ve come back to take care of Addie. We all try to check in on her from time to time, but it’s not the same. I hear you’re a singer. Will you look for work here in Anastasia?”
“I have a job lined up at the Phylliss Academy of Voice in San Francisco,” Rachel said, seeing no reason to hide the fact from them. At any rate, she needed to practice saying it. She was going to have to tell Addie soon, so they could make plans to sell Drake House and move.
“San Francisco?” Jayne said it as if it were a place totally foreign to her.
Bryan merely stood silent, his expression carefully blank.
“Yes. As soon as I get my mother’s affairs in order, we’ll be selling the house and moving to the city.”
; “Does Addie know about this?” Bryan asked, taking great care to sound more neutral than he felt.
Rachel nibbled at her lower lip. She couldn’t quite meet his eyes. “Not yet.”
At that moment Addie made her grand entrance into the dining room. Her style of dress was even more incongruous than Jayne’s. Over her flowered housedress she wore a filmy pink robe trimmed in pink ostrich feathers. On her feet, her ever-present green rubber boots. She took in the group with one regal, sweeping glance.
“Hennessy, my G and T, please.”
Rachel grabbed at Bryan’s coat sleeve. He turned toward her and her concern momentarily fled. He was so close. His mouth was no more than inches from hers as he leaned down toward her. She moistened her lips nervously as the memory of his kiss came flooding back. Beneath her fingertips and the fine wool of his jacket his arm was a rock of muscle.
“Don’t worry,” he whispered, easily reading her mind. “There’s almost no G in Addie’s G and T. I just splash some on the ice so I’m not really fibbing when I give it to her.”
He turned toward the sideboard to mix the drink. Rachel sighed, helpless to stop the sweet warmth flooding her chest. It would be so very easy to let herself fall for him. He was handsome and charming in a rather bizarre sort of way. He was so kind and solicitous toward Addie. She watched him hand her mother the weak drink. He winked at Addie and pretended to pull a quarter out of her ear.
“You’re an idiot, Hennessy. I don’t know why I keep you on,” Addie blustered, shooing him away, but there was a rare twinkle in her eye and a bloom in her cheeks that hadn’t been there when they’d returned home after the incident in the park.
How Rachel envied him that easy rapport with her mother. He didn’t have the burden of a past full of pain and mistakes weighing down his every word. He didn’t have the burden of a future full of heartache and sacrifice holding him back. He could walk away anytime he liked, and no one could ever fault him. He didn’t have to deal with issues like selling Drake House. All Bryan had to worry about was pulling quarters out of people’s ears.
They sat down to a meal of thick, aromatic beef stew and hot biscuits. It wasn’t exactly a five-course dinner to go along with the china and silver on the polished walnut table, but it was hearty, healthy fare and required only one utensil to eat it-an important consideration for Addie, who was slowly losing her ability to deal with a full complement of flatware.
“Hennessy is quite an adequate cook,” Addie said, dipping her biscuit into the gravy on her plate and nibbling at it delicately. “He’s an impudent rascal, insisting on eating at the table with the rest of us, but I tolerate him.”
Rachel frowned. Bryan wasn’t the butler, and she didn’t see any reason for him to be treated like one. But when she opened her mouth to set her mother straight, Bryan caught her eye and shook his head ever so slightly.
“That’s very big of you, Addie,” he said. “Not everyone is as generous and forgiving as you are.”
Addie gave him a shrewd look. “Remember that, young man.” She tossed back the last of her gin and tonic and thrust the glass at him for a refill. Lifting her nose slightly, she glanced askance at Rachel. “Some people don’t appreciate generosity and sacrifice, and look what happens to them.”
Rachel ground her retort between her teeth and choked it down with a piece of potato.
“Did I mention how stunning you look tonight, Addie?” Bryan said affably, handing her glass back to her filled with tonic water and a slice of lime. “I can’t think of another woman who could wear that outfit quite the way you do… unless it might be Jayne,” he added, grinning across the table at his friend, who stuck her tongue out at him.
Addie beamed and fluffed her ostrich feathers.
“And didn’t Rachel find a beautiful dress?” Bryan said, not realizing the way his voice dropped and softened. Nor did he realize the longing that shone in his eyes.
Rachel sat directly across from him, between Addie, at the head of the table, and Jayne. A tiny smile of gratitude canted the corners of her lips.
Addie gave her daughter a hard, assessing look, “Yes, it’s very suitable. For once you don’t look like some cheap, wandering Gypsy.”
The smile faded away as Rachel closed her eyes and counted to ten.
“Rachel,” Jayne said brightly as she picked around the meat in her stew. “Tell us all about your career as a singer. My, how exciting that must be. I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.”
“That’s not much to tell,” Rachel said, bracing her shoulders. She kept her head down, her eyes trained on her plate as she tried to extricate herself from the subject as quickly as she could without being rude. “We played a lot of clubs, managed to get on a couple of PBS folk music shows.”
“That’s wonderful.” Jayne smiled. “I just love folk music. It’s very spiritual. So visual and honest in its images. Don’t you agree, Addie?”
Addie’s lips pinched into a white line. “Drivel. Opera is the only pure form of vocal music.”
Jayne never missed a beat, turning back to Rachel. “You said ‘we.’ I take it you have a partner?”
“Had,” Rachel said shortly. Her fingers tightened on her fork in anticipation of the comment her mother would surely make.
“Feckless little ferret.”
“Mother, please…”
“Addie, I love your hair in that style. What do you call it?” Bryan asked.
Addie scowled at him. “A braid. Honestly, Hennessy, there are times I wonder if you aren’t mentally deficient.”
“Well, the color is marvelous,” he went on, grinning as he speared vegetables with his fork.
Addie’s attention shifted between Rachel and Bryan, between unpleasantness and inanity. Bryan’s wink won her over, and she turned toward him with a pleased look. “You think so?” she asked, stroking the frazzled braid that lay over her shoulder. “I’ve been thinking of dying it. I saw a color on television called Sable Seductress.”
“Oh, no. Blondes have more fun. Take it from me,” Bryan said, winking at her again.
Addie blushed and turned toward Jayne. “He’s such a flirt.”
“Always has been, Addie,” Jayne said. “His whole family is that way. Why, it would make you swoon to see all those men together. They look like something out of Gentleman’s Quarterly.”
“Where is that Australian tonight?” Addie demanded, her mind already drifting from the topic of Bryan.
“Reilly’s in Vancouver shooting a movie,” Jayne said, automatically glowing at the thought of her husband.
Bryan managed to steer the conversation in Jayne’s direction for the remainder of the meal. He coaxed her into speaking at length about her husband’s acting career and her own budding career as a director. As curious as he was to learn more about Rachel and her past, he wasn’t eager to have Jayne prize the information out of her there at the dinner table, where Addie could carve it all up for ridicule.
He’d been willing to do the carving himself less than twenty-four hours earlier, he reminded himself. But that had been before he’d had the chance to observe Rachel. That had been when his only knowledge of her had come from Addie’s cutting remarks and the obvious pain behind them. Now he had seen Rachel. He’d seen-and felt-the turbulent tangle of emotions she was struggling with. He’d watched her look for the slightest sign of forgiveness or approval from her mother, and he’d seen the hurt flash in her lavender eyes when her hopes had met with cold disappointment.
He had accepted his own decision to help Addie and Rachel as best he could. And with that acceptance had come a subtle shifting in his feelings toward Rachel. The beginnings of protectiveness were coming to life inside him. Every time Addie inflicted another small cut with the razor edge of her tongue, the faint urge to take Rachel in his arms washed through him. He ignored the feeling on a conscious level, on a level where he was still not ready to involve himself completely, but it was there just the same.
Finally, Jayne scraped he
r chair back from the table and gave everyone an apologetic look. “I hate to say it, but I’ve got an important meeting tonight. I really have to be running along. Thanks so much for inviting me, Addie.”
“You invited yourself,” Bryan said, a grin teasing the corners of his mouth as he rose from his chair.
Jayne made a face at him. “Don’t get snippy. I brought the biscuits, didn’t I?”
“So you did,” he conceded graciously. “And they were delicious.”
Jayne bent, kissed the parchmentlike skin of Addie’s pale cheek and bid all good night.
“Where’s that Australian?” Addie asked.
“He’s working,” Jayne replied patiently. She leaned down and impulsively gave Rachel a hug around her shoulders. “It’s been such fun, Rachel. You’ll have to come over to the farm one day soon for a visit.”
Rachel managed a genuine smile for her new friend. It was impossible not to like Jayne immediately. “I will. It was nice meeting you, Jayne.”
“Same here,” Jayne said sincerely. “By the way, what’s your sign?”
“Um… Aquarius, I think,” Rachel mumbled uncertainly, knocked off balance again by Jayne’s sudden change of subject.
Jayne’s dark eyes took on a considering gleam as she looked from Rachel to Bryan, a secretive smile on her lips. “Bryan, honey, walk me out, will you?”
Leaving the Lindquists in the dining room, Bryan took Jayne’s arm and strolled down the hall with her. Neither spoke until they were on the wide porch.
“She’s very pretty.”
Bryan put on his blank, amicable smile and stuck his hands into his trouser pockets. “Who?”
Jayne frowned prettily. “Don’t play that role with me, Bryan Hennessy. I know you too well to be fooled by it. Really,” she said in a huffy tone, toying with the dainty gold bracelet that circled her left wrist. “I ought to be offended.”
“But you’re too busy recapping the dinner conversation and condensing it for analysis to bother.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she said, pouting.
Bryan grinned openly at that. He reached up and tugged playfully at the end of her necktie. “Tell me, does this miraculous turn of events warrant a conference call or an all-hands-on-deck type meeting?”