The Girl From Summer Hill

by Jude Deveraux

  Next was a file labeled RACHAEL. In it was a video of her talking to someone off camera.

  “It was the worst thing I ever did,” Rachael said. “And he wouldn’t even pay me! That night he came by the hotel and tried to get me to go to bed with him. I slammed the door on his hand and I hope I broke his fingers.”

  Rachael looked at the camera. “Casey, if you’re seeing this, I’m sorry. I’ve never met Tate Landers and I lied about him. The gossip around L.A. is that he’s a really nice man. And as for that story about the publicity stunt, I don’t know anything about it. Haines gave me the photos and said he’d pay me to do some acting. I thought it was all a joke—until I saw your face. Devlin Haines is a real bastard.”

  Rachael glanced over at the interviewer. “Sorry. I know you used to be married to him.”

  “I’ve called him worse,” said a woman’s voice. “Anything else you want to say?”

  Rachael looked back at the camera. “Casey, you’re not fat. Haines told me to be sure to say that. And again, I’m very sorry for lying to you.”

  Casey closed the file and got up to make herself a cup of tea. As she reached for the mug, her hands were shaking.

  It took hours to go through all the folders. Whoever had put them together—probably Nina—had done a thorough job. The mother of the little boy on the roof had been interviewed. She got very angry when she was told that someone had said the whole thing was a publicity stunt and that the child wasn’t hers. Her language became quite colorful!

  The man who took the photos of the rescue was interviewed, and he told how he’d been paid twenty grand for them. He had no affiliation to any news media and no one had hired him to take the pictures.

  It seemed Tate had told Nina about Devlin’s gift to Casey, for there was a sales receipt for the recent purchase of an antique chocolate mold. “So much for his grandmother,” Casey murmured.

  At eight, she made herself a sandwich and poured a large glass of wine. There was one more file. TO BE SAVED FOR LAST was the name on it.

  Casey didn’t know how much more she could take. What kind of person did the things that Devlin Haines had done? The lies, the twisting and turning of facts and history, were beyond what she could comprehend.

  She drank half the wine before she opened the remaining folder. What horrible thing had Nina saved for last?

  But what she saw on the video was her own house, and what she heard was a little girl giggling.

  Casey leaned back on the pillows, pulled the computer onto her lap, and watched Tate Landers put on a silent movie of his war with a peacock.

  By the time he got to the pajamas on the floor, Casey was laughing. Tate’s pantomimed throat-cutting made her laugh harder.

  She heard his stomach growling and saw him scoop up the pie with a big spoon. The look on his face at the taste of the pie she’d made was possibly the most honest, heartfelt compliment she’d ever received.

  When she saw herself enter the kitchen and start bawling Tate out, Casey was holding her stomach from laughter. She was like the straight man in a comedy routine. The anger on her face when she saw Tate’s shirt hanging from the roof sent her into spasms. And Tate’s innocent expression when he asked if she could sew on his button nearly did her in.

  It was late when she closed her computer and went upstairs. She needed time to think about all she’d learned.

  How do you recover from embarrassment so deep that you never again want to be seen in public? Casey wondered.

  The next morning, at barely daylight, she was outside in the herb garden. It was Sunday, so rehearsals wouldn’t start until two—and she didn’t know if she could bear to go.

  How did she face Tate after seeing what she had? What could she possibly say to him? “I’m sorry”? That’s what you said when you accidentally stepped on someone’s toe.

  What words could adequately apologize for the things she’d said? For all that she’d accused Tate of? There were none that could cover it.

  Last night, after she’d recovered from her laughter over the Peacock War, she returned to reality and saw her part in the…well, the evil of Devlin Haines. Why hadn’t she seen through him? Why hadn’t she checked out his story? Some of the clips on the drive had been from YouTube, so she could have found them. When Devlin told her Tate had ruined his show, why didn’t she look online to verify that?

  The answer was, of course, that normal humans weren’t used to people who lied on the scale that Devlin Haines did. And there was Casey’s assumption that a man who was a movie star must be out for whatever he could get. She had dismissed Tate’s talk of staying together, but she’d believed every lie Haines had told her.

  Before she went to bed, she’d sent an email to Gizzy: I WAS WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING. THE RESCUE WAS REAL. I AM AN IDIOT. WE HAVE TO TALK TOMORROW.

  She didn’t tell Gizzy about what was on the flash drive and knew she wouldn’t. So much of it was private. Nina had entrusted those personal documents to Casey, and they weren’t to be shared.

  She picked some parsley and put it in her trug. Tate’s sister and niece had arrived, and she planned to cook them the best food she’d ever made.

  As she moved to the little patch of chives, she thought how Nina knew everything. She knew Casey had believed every word Haines said and had assumed that Tate was lying. How was Casey going to face the woman?

  At worst, Casey imagined, Nina would sneer at her, curse her, tell her what she thought of her. And Casey deserved it all. She—

  “Hello.”

  She turned to see a pretty little girl with dark hair and eyes that were exactly like Tate’s. She had on pink tights, a pink-and-white dress, and sparkly pink shoes. “You must be Emmie.”

  She nodded. “Uncle Tate said it was okay for me to visit you. Can you really cook? He says you can make dirt and rocks taste good.”

  “I can,” Casey said. “My secret is that I put fried worms on top. I tried red ants but they were too crunchy. I didn’t want to compete with the rocks.”

  Emmie blinked a few times, then smiled exactly like Tate did. “I like sand better than rocks.”

  Casey laughed. She looked like her uncle and she had his sense of humor. “Are you hungry?”

  “Yes,” Emmie said.

  “Then come inside and I’ll make you some breakfast.”

  Inside, Emmie peered around the kitchen. “Did you really put jam in those jars?”

  “I did.” Casey was looking in the refrigerator, trying to decide what to cook for this child, who she’d heard was a picky eater.

  “I saw the jars when Uncle Tate chased the peacock. He hates that bird! Mom let me buy him a big mug with a peacock handle. It’ll make him laugh.”

  “Has he seen it yet?”

  “No,” Emmie said. “What’s that?”

  “Pie dough. I made it yesterday. You wouldn’t like to help me make some tiny pies, would you? We can fill them with bacon and cheese, or blackberries, or we can make up a filling. Pizza is nice, or I have some South Carolina peaches we can use.”

  With every word Casey spoke, Emmie’s eyes grew bigger. It took a few minutes to get hands washed, aprons on, and hair tied back before they were ready to begin. Casey showed her how to use the round biscuit cutter to shape the dough and how to put the filling in the middle.

  Throughout it all, Emmie kept up a steady stream of talk about everything. Her mother was asleep, Uncle Tate was reading, and Uncle Jack had left the house early that morning. “It was still dark,” Emmie said. She said she’d thought about climbing into bed with her mother, but instead she got dressed and went in search of the “food lady.”

  She and her mother had arrived late the afternoon before. “I wanted to come see you then, but Uncle Tate said no, that you were busy. Do you cook a lot?”

  “Lately, I’ve cooked too much,” Casey said. She was putting the first batch of the little pies in the oven. “I thought I’d make a big breakfast and take it over there. When do you think your mother wi
ll be awake?”

  “Not for a long time.” Emmie sighed. “Mom and Uncle Tate talked all night. I went down once and Mom was crying.”

  “I’m sorry,” Casey whispered, and truly hoped she wasn’t the cause of Nina’s tears. “Do you know why she was crying?”

  “My dad,” Emmie said. “It’s always him. She’s unhappy when he’s around. Can I use this turtle cutter?”

  “I think that’s a perfect shape. Want to dye the peaches green?”

  “Pink!” Emmie said.

  “Good choice.” Casey got out her food colorings. She knew she probably shouldn’t ask a child, but her mind was so full of what she’d read. How had this lovely child dealt with all that had happened? “When your dad lived with you and your mom, was he gone a lot?”

  “Yes, but my mom and I liked it better when he wasn’t there.” Under Casey’s direction, Emmie put a few drops of red coloring on the peaches and turned them pink. “Dad drank whiskey and yelled at us, and that made Mom cry. Uncle Tate was working on movies so we didn’t see him except on the computer. Mom said that when he called us we had to lie and say we were really happy. She didn’t want Uncle Tate to be sad.”

  “That must have been difficult.” Casey helped Emmie press the edges of the dough together.

  “Yeah. It was hard not to tell him the truth. Mom had to put me in another school because Dad wouldn’t pay the bill. He said I had to go to school with regular kids, but they weren’t nice to me, because my uncle is a movie star. But I couldn’t tell Uncle Tate that.”

  “What happened when your uncle came home?”

  Smiling, Emmie used a truffle cutter to make a tiny diamond in the turtle’s back. “Uncle Tate went crazy. He was really, really mad. He broke some dishes.”

  Casey looked up, alarmed. “Were you afraid of him?”

  “Naw. It was exciting. Uncle Tate said he was going to murder my dad, but Mom said he couldn’t because of the police. He went to my old school and smiled at all the ladies and they let me back in. Uncle Tate is really good at smiling. But my mom said it isn’t Uncle Tate’s face that makes him a hero, it’s that he knows how to pay bills.”

  Casey laughed. She already liked Nina. “What happened after that?”

  “Dad quit being on TV. He said he was glad, because he hated the show. Then he went to a real have.”

  Casey remembered what she’d read. “Right. Rehab. Did it work? Did he quit drinking?”

  “No. My mom said he and his girlfriend were still drinking whiskey. We saw them at a movie. They were kissing and they slid down in the seat. Mom won’t let me do that at the movies! When we got home, she called Uncle Tate and he came over right away. Mom said we didn’t have to lie anymore, so I told him the things Dad said I had to keep secret. When I stayed at his house, there was lots of whiskey and lots of girlfriends.”

  The child’s voice softened. “That’s when Uncle Tate started hugging Mom and she cried. The next day she left me with a babysitter, and she and Uncle Tate went to see Mr. Simpson. He’s a lawyer and I met him. He has ice cream in his office. He said it kept us brats busy so we wouldn’t hear the mothers saying bad words. He was funny.”

  “Your parents got a divorce.”

  “Yeah. Lots of kids at school have them, so I wasn’t scared. But Mom was really mad. She said it wasn’t right that Uncle Tate said he’d pay Dad, that he didn’t deserve it.”

  “Pay him for what?”

  “I don’t know. His bills, I guess. Uncle Tate bought Dad a red car. And a house. But Dad didn’t like them. He said they were cheap and he deserved better.” She looked at Casey. “My mom says Uncle Tate is the greatest person alive on the earth.”

  “I think she might be right.”

  After Casey and Emmie finished with the hand pies—and Emmie had eaten hugely of them—they walked around the property together. Emmie wanted to see where her uncle Tate was in the play, so they went to the big gazebo. It was stacked high with chairs and boxes of costumes and props.

  Emmie talked constantly. She told Casey about her friends at school, how one little boy was utterly horrible and she hardly ever spoke to him. And how some girls were good one week but bad the next.

  “How do you know how to cook?” Emmie asked, as they reached the old orchard.

  Casey told the story of her nannies and all the lessons she’d had. “One year while I was in college, I worked in an orchard on weekends and in the summer.” To Casey’s surprise, Emmie wanted to hear about grafting trees and spraying them when the buds came out. “These poor trees haven’t been cared for at all.”

  “But now you live here so you can do it.”

  “I think I’ll be moving away,” Casey said quietly.

  Emmie looked at her in alarm. “But who will cook for Uncle Tate when he’s here by himself?”

  “He’ll find someone who can—” Casey began, but stopped. Obviously, the child was truly worried about her beloved uncle Tate. “I’ll cook so much for him that he’ll get fat and won’t need to eat for a year. Think that will work?”

  “No,” Emmie said, frowning. “Movie stars can’t get fat.”

  “I won’t leave him without food,” Casey said softly. “I promise.”

  Smiling, Emmie went back to asking questions and talking about everything.

  But one thing she didn’t mention again was her father. As far as Casey could tell, Devlin Haines had no part in the child’s everyday life. An image flashed across her mind of the times Devlin had tears in his eyes when he mentioned his daughter, saying how much he missed her and wanted to spend time with her but that Tate had prevented it.

  And she had fallen for every word of it!

  After about an hour of wandering, they came to the Big House—and Casey held her breath. If they saw Tate, what would she say?

  But the house was silent. Casey waited outside as Emmie tiptoed in and came out minutes later wearing a pink swimsuit and carrying a big pink towel. “Pond or pool?” asked Casey.

  “Pond,” Emmie said, and they clasped hands and began running.

  The pond was down a path, through rhododendron bushes, past the big magnolia tree with the stone statue of a smiling woman.

  “That’s where Letty and Ace saved the world,” Emmie said. “They—”

  “Fought outer-space demons.”

  Emmie’s eyes widened. “You know about them?”

  “Your uncle told me. Did you know that Ace grew up to be my father?”

  “Letty is my grandmother, so that makes you my…my aunt.”

  “I don’t think that’s right,” Casey said, but Emmie was running ahead to the pond. Casey had an idea that nothing she could say was going to dissuade Emmie from calling her Aunt Casey.

  They walked around the pond and Emmie stuck her foot in, but she liked talking better. When she told the story of Letty and Ace pushing Uncle Freddy in his wheelchair into the pond, Casey thought how she looked forward to getting Olivia and the child together. Olivia had been there!

  “Mr. Gates was really upset, but Uncle Freddy just laughed,” Emmie said, sounding as if it was a story she’d heard often. “He loved Letty and Ace. What did your father tell you about him?”

  “I don’t know my father very well,” Casey said. “I just met him a few months ago, and we haven’t had very many long talks. But I do plan to ask him about when he was Ace.”

  “I know,” Emmie said. “Uncles are much better than fathers. Do you have an uncle?”

  “Not a one. I—”

  Emmie glanced to the side and her face lit up. “Mom!” she yelled, and went running to hug her mother.

  Casey turned to see a tall woman coming toward them. She was quite pretty, with dark hair and eyes, and she very much resembled Tate.

  At the sight of her, Casey stiffened. This was the woman who’d let her know how stupid she’d been about Tate. She’d believed a liar and had judged Tate—based on no evidence—to be a bad person.

  But Nina smiled at Casey. “Hello.” S
he was hugging her daughter.

  “We made little pies,” Emmie said. “They have cheese and peaches in them, and mine look like turtles and I ate a dozen of them.”

  “Why don’t you take some to Uncle Tate? I think he’s tired of reading his new script.”

  “Okay.” Emmie ran toward the guesthouse, her towel trailing behind her.

  When they were alone, Nina turned to Casey. “Thank you for taking care of Emmie this morning. He said he watched her until she found you and…” She took a breath. “Tate and I were up late last night. She usually wakes me, but this morning she didn’t. By the way, I’m Nina Landers.”

  Casey’s body was so stiff she felt like a mannequin. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t have believed Devlin. I should have—”

  Nina’s snort of laughter cut her off. “I married him! I believed him so much that I pledged to stay with him forever. Anything you did is a poor copy of my idiocy.”

  “But I…” Casey couldn’t think what to say.

  “Do you really have a kitchen full of food, as Tate says? His fridge is utterly empty.”

  “Come with me,” Casey said, and they began to walk.

  “Did I hear you and my daughter talking about Letty and Ace? Tate said Ace is your father. I’d love to talk to him. And Josh Hartman is your brother? He seems nice, very interesting. And understanding. Actually, he has a depth of perception that I find remarkable. I can’t believe I didn’t meet him when Stacy and I were working together.”

  As they walked, Casey began to smile. It didn’t look like Nina was angry at her—and it seemed that she was interested in Josh. Unfortunately, so were most of the females of Summer Hill. But Casey liked a woman who’d go to so much trouble to defend her brother. Maybe if Casey got together with her sisters, they could push Josh toward this woman.

  At the guesthouse, Casey had Nina sit while she made her an omelet of grilled peppers and three cheeses. While Casey cooked, Nina talked and asked questions.

  After only a few minutes, Casey’s feelings of guilt over what she’d done to Tate began to lessen and she started talking about the rehearsals. “Poor Kit. Everyone is angry at everyone else and he can’t get good performances out of any of us. There’s some big past secret between him and Olivia.”