The Girl From Summer Hill

by Jude Deveraux

  It took Olivia a few seconds to understand what she was hearing. When she did, her knees buckled under her. Tate made a leap and caught her before she hit the wooden floor.

  Kit still didn’t understand what was going on.

  Estelle glared at him. “Lori is your biological granddaughter. I believe that man playing Wickham enticed her to run away with him because he found out that she’s related to you and your rich family. I think he means to marry her to get money from you. But he can’t marry her! She’s just a child who lies about her age.” When Estelle broke into tears, Tate helped her to a chair beside Olivia.

  What Estelle was saying was finally beginning to sink in to Kit. When he looked at Olivia, all the blood had drained from her face. Casey and Tate were hovering over her protectively.

  “You had our child?” Kit’s voice was so soft they could barely hear him. For a few minutes he seemed too stunned to know what to do, but then his many years of dealing with crises kicked in.

  His phone was still in his hand and he called a number. “Rowan,” he said in a voice of command, “I need you here immediately. This is official business.”

  Kit turned off the phone and looked at them: Olivia, Estelle, Dr. Kyle, Tate, and Casey. “Need I admonish you to say nothing of this to anyone? My son will be here in a matter of hours, then we’ll—” He broke off, and for a moment he stared at Olivia.

  She returned his stare with her chin high, almost in defiance.

  Kit turned away, started to speak, but then, with his shoulders back, he went down the stairs and disappeared into the garden.

  Thirty minutes later, Casey made her way through the blackberry tunnel and into the well house. As she’d hoped, Kit was sitting on the cushions. He looked as if he’d aged a hundred years. Since she had no idea what to say to him, she fell back on her standard: feed them and listen. She poured a cup of hot coffee from a thermos and handed it to him with a toasted bagel with lots of butter on it.

  “I haven’t been in here in years,” he said. His voice was hoarse, raspy, as though he’d been crying. He glanced up at the ceiling. “It needs some repair.”

  Casey had changed into jeans and a shirt. On impulse, she’d put the cord with the ring she and Tate found around her neck. She took it off and held it out to him. “Is this yours?”

  He took it and stared at it. Then tears came to his eyes. “Yes. I left it in here for Livie.” For a minute he didn’t speak. “I loved her so much,” he whispered. “From the first moment I saw her, I loved her.” As he held the ring tightly, he gave a little smile. “It wasn’t mutual. She had a summer job being housekeeper/cook to a couple of sedentary old men. It was a surprise that I, a nineteen-year-old boy, was also staying here. She called me ‘Worthless Boy’ and said I was good for nothing but causing her more work.”

  He looked at Casey, his eyes glistening with tears. “And she was right! I was so young and stupid that I thought an oath I’d taken to my country was more important than she was. I didn’t tell her that I was waiting to be picked up whenever our government got around to remembering me. All I really knew about my mission was that I was to be gone for a year and there could be no contact with family or friends during that time. But even knowing nothing, I was so full of my own importance that I didn’t tell Olivia anything. I let her believe I was a college dropout, content to live on my family’s money.”

  Kit took a long drink of the coffee and a bite of the bagel. “This ring was my grandmother’s. I waited until three days before Olivia was to leave for New York to star in a Broadway production of Pride and Prejudice to ask her the big question.”

  Pausing, he turned the ring over in his hand. “She went to Richmond that day. That’s all that happened. A simple, everyday thing like that changed our lives. I was asleep when she left or I would have asked her not to go. But I was worn out from…” He waved his hand. “It doesn’t matter now. An hour after she left, the agents came for me in a big black car, and I was given twenty minutes to pack and leave.”

  He looked at Casey. “I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. I scribbled out a letter, begging Livie to wait for me, but I was afraid to leave it and the ring in my bedroom. I was scared that the government men would take it. I slipped away from them—something I’m good at, which is why they wanted me—and went to the well house. I knew that no one but Livie and me came in here.”

  He smiled in memory. “The old peacock guarded the place. Livie and I had peck marks on our legs from his beak. But the good thing was that the creature kept the kids away.”

  “Letty and Ace.”

  “Yes,” Kit said. “They were everywhere, into everything. No one had a secret that they didn’t find out. But the well house and its ferocious guardian belonged to Livie and me.”

  “You left the letter and the ring in here for her?”

  “I did,” he said. “I thought they’d be safe and that she’d be sure to find them. The note had contact information for my family, and I begged her to go to them.”

  He looked at Casey. “I saw her on Broadway. It was a couple of months later. The night before I was to ship out, they took me to New York and put me up in a cheap hotel. I knew that I was being sent on an undercover mission that I might not return from. I wasn’t supposed to leave the hotel room. I’d been ordered, at the peril of my life, to contact no one.”

  His eyes burned in intensity. “But I had to see her. If the penalty had been a firing squad, I couldn’t have stopped myself. I sneaked out a bathroom window, climbed down a drainpipe, and ran to the theater. I paid a man five hundred dollars for his ticket, then I sat in the back and watched her. She was an excellent actress, very natural. I thought that by the time I returned, she’d be the leading light of Broadway.”

  When he looked away, Casey reached out to put her hand over his.

  “The mission stretched into three years, and there was a point where I was more dead than alive. I only survived because I was sure Livie was waiting for me.”

  For a moment he stared up at the window. “When I got home to the U.S., I had healed only enough that I could walk with two canes. I was shocked that my family hadn’t heard from Livie, and I couldn’t believe that her name wasn’t in lights in New York. I went to Summer Hill to find her. I was joyous, thinking of being with her again. But when I got there…”

  “You found out that she was married to someone else,” Casey said.

  “Yes, and they had a little boy, who I thought was hers—which meant that she hadn’t taken any time after I left to find someone else. I saw her in the appliance store and from what I could tell, she ran the place. When I followed her home, I saw her house with its pretty lawn, and I realized that she had what she needed. She did not need some damaged military man who disappeared for years at a time.”

  He looked at Casey. “Oh, hell! I wish I had been that self-sacrificing. The truth is that I was angry. Furious! Why hadn’t she waited for me? I could have given her any house she wanted. I could have—” He took a breath. “I felt betrayed, but worse was that I didn’t understand any of it.”

  “Until today.”

  “Yes, until today.” He calmed himself. “I can’t imagine what Livie went through. Expecting our baby and totally alone. Her parents were older and fragile. They wouldn’t have been any help.”

  “I think she turned to Dr. Everett.”

  “Your grandfather,” Kit said. “If I’m piecing the story together correctly, he sent Livie to a maternity home in Jacksonville, Florida, to have the baby—our baby. Then he sent a childless Estelle after her. Looks like she said thanks by using Livie’s mother’s name, Portia.” He paused. “Estelle is right. This is my fault. I should have contacted Livie to make sure she got the ring. I should have waited outside the theater and spoken to her. But I was afraid the agent in charge of my mission would find out that I was gone. Back then I thought that’s what was important. I should have done something!”

  Casey couldn’t bear to see him so devastate
d. “Did the mission you were sent on help anyone?”

  “Yes,” he said. “It saved hundreds, maybe thousands, of lives.” He took a breath. “I’m sorry I’ve been so harsh over these last weeks. I didn’t mean to be so angry, but it’s all gone wrong. Through all those years, my pride kept me from contacting Livie. But when I retired…” He looked at Casey and shrugged.

  “You returned to Summer Hill.”

  “Not intentionally. When my secretary heard that the movie star Tate Landers was my distant cousin through little Letty, she nagged me into going to meet him. He told me about his plan to buy our family’s plantation. He didn’t want to be publicly identified as the owner, so he asked me to put it under my name. I almost said no because that would mean returning to Summer Hill and risking seeing Livie again. But I told myself it had been long enough that the old wound had healed. What an idiot I was! Just the sight of this place brought everything back so hard it was as if I’d never been away.”

  He paused. “I meant to leave as soon as the paperwork to buy Tattwell was done. But then I saw Olivia on the street and…” He lifted his head.

  “And you couldn’t leave. Not again. What about the play?”

  Kit took a moment before he answered. “I bought the warehouse, remodeled it, wrote the play, badgered you and Stacy into helping me, all of it, so I’d have a reason to be near Livie. I thought I knew her well enough that she wouldn’t be able to resist trying out for a role. But when she wanted nothing to do with me or my play, it made me furious. I apologize for taking my anger out on all of you.” He was beginning to recover himself. “I’ve told no other person this story.”

  “Thank you for trusting me with it,” Casey said.

  “I guess now everyone is going to know.” He looked around as though just seeing the little old building. “You found the ring in here?”

  Casey reached across him to pull the red metal box out of its place.

  He stared at the peacock picture on the lid. “Those kids were fascinated by that bird. When Uncle Freddy told them that somewhere in the attic was an old candy box with a peacock on it, they nearly tore the place apart searching for it.” Kit smiled at Casey. “You know, don’t you, that you’re a lot like your father. He missed his parents so much, but his father, Dr. Everett, was at the hospital around the clock with his dying wife. Like you, Ace was a good listener.”

  “Thanks,” she said. She wanted to hear more about her father, but there were urgent matters to take care of. “Is your son in the FBI?”

  “Yes. Rowan is the product of the marriage that I settled for. It was very unhappy—all my fault—and my children and their mother deserved better.” Kit looked back at her. “What happened after I so cowardly left the scene?”

  “Only a few of us know about Lori and we’re keeping it to ourselves. We told the cast that you had a serious ailment and had to leave.”

  “Food poisoning.”

  “Over my dead body!” Casey snapped.

  Leaning forward, Kit kissed her cheek. “Thanks. I needed a dose of laughter. How is Livie?”

  “After you left, Olivia and Estelle went to the library in the Big House and shut the door. They have a lot to talk about.”

  “An understatement. What about Haines?”

  “Nina is very upset. She says she should have warned people, and Tate and I feel the same way. We should have told what we know about him.”

  “Warned them of what? No, don’t tell me now. Let’s go back to the house. I want to hear every word about everything.”

  It took a few minutes to untangle themselves from the briars. When she got out, Casey wasn’t surprised to see Tate sitting on the bench by the path, waiting for them.

  “I need you to come with me,” Tate said to her. “We have to go to Haines’s house on the lake to see what we can find out.” He glanced at Kit. “Nina knows everything, so she can fill you in. Olivia went to Estelle’s house to look at photos and to talk.”

  There was a flicker of pain across Kit’s eyes, but he recovered quickly. “I’ll call you when Rowan gets here. He’ll want to see you.”

  “I’ve already talked to him and given him the facts. He said this is not to reach the press, or Haines might panic.”

  “I agree,” Kit said. “Go on and I’ll take care of things here.”

  Tate took Casey’s hand and they walked back to her house.

  “What’s going on at the house?” Casey asked as soon as they got into her car.

  Tate was backing out. “A lot of talk, a lot of tears. How’s Kit?”

  “Hurt, angry, devastated, shocked. What a waste of years and a mix-up of two lives! I take it you haven’t heard anything from Devlin.”

  “Nothing. Lori’s note said that she’d found a man who truly understands her and she wants to be with him forever. It seems that she and Estelle had an argument and…”

  “I get it,” Casey said. “Teenage angst. No one understands her except a thirty-some-year-old divorced man.” She swallowed. “Poor kid. I didn’t know you knew Kit’s son.”

  “I don’t, but it seems he’s some big-shot FBI guy, so he has access to all phone numbers. He wanted details about what had upset his father. I think it takes a lot to throw Kit Montgomery.”

  “Did you tell Rowan that the missing girl is his niece?”

  “Yes. I didn’t see any reason to sugarcoat things.”

  “How’d he take it?” Casey asked.

  “If he was shocked, he hid it well. He said, ‘Good,’ then he asked me about Haines.”

  “What did you say?”

  “That he’s a complete narcissist. He can’t understand why other people are ‘given’ so much when he’s the smartest, most talented, most lovable, et cetera, person on the planet.” Tate waved his hand. “Anyway, the good thing is that we’re fairly sure that Haines doesn’t know Lori is only fifteen.”

  “If he tries to marry her he’ll find out—which is what I assume his intention is. No doubt he plans to do whatever he can to get access to Kit’s wealth.”

  “Yes,” Tate said. “That’s what we all fear. Rowan will be here with a couple of agents this evening. They’re coming in on one of Kit’s family’s jets.”

  “Ah,” Casey said. “How in the world did he figure all this out?”

  “Olivia said she thinks it started when she was at the food tables and mentioned she was allergic to almonds. Lori said she was too. Haines was right beside them. Between that and the physical resemblance…” Tate shrugged. “He’s always been clever at figuring out things about people.”

  “I’m the one who first told him about Olivia’s allergy.”

  “I guess it began there, but I was also with Haines when we overheard Olivia and Kit arguing.” He told Casey what had happened. “Estelle called someone from the old maternity home where Olivia had the baby. The records were sealed, but it looks like Haines hired the sleazy PI he used against Nina in the divorce. Somebody was paid off to snoop into the records.” Tate’s mouth tightened. “I’m to blame for this. Whenever I saw Haines and Lori together, I laughed about it. I was so glad he wasn’t pestering you or Nina or Emmie that I left that poor kid alone to fight him.”

  Casey put her hand over his. “I did the same thing.” She looked at him. “We have to fix this. You, me, Nina. We have to do everything we can to protect that girl.”

  “I agree.” Tate was driving toward the huge lake beside Summer Hill. He turned off the road that looped around the lake into the driveway of a large, modern house, all glass and natural wood. Tate pulled a key out of his pocket, opened the door, and they went inside.

  The interior had been professionally decorated in furniture with clean lines, and every item had been chosen to stylishly coordinate. There was nothing personal about the house.

  “Wow,” Casey said. “This place must cost him some money.”

  “Six thousand, two hundred, and twenty-three dollars a month,” Tate said. “Plus utilities.”

  “Do you p
ay for it?”

  “Of course. A lake house for the summer was a bribe to keep him off Nina’s back. But he lied to me about where the house was. If I’d known it was near Tattwell, I would have said no.”

  “I think we should stop beating ourselves up over this. Any idea what we need to look for?”

  “None,” Tate said. “We can start going through drawers, but I warn you that Haines doesn’t leave personal things around. He doesn’t like for people to know about him.”

  Casey opened a glass-doored cabinet in the all-white kitchen and removed a wineglass. “This is mine, a gift from my mother. I asked him about it and he said he left it on the table and that you had probably taken it.” She opened a door that led into the garage.

  “Anything?”

  “Just that there’s no leaky rowboat in there.” She watched Tate open drawers in a cabinet by the dining table. How had he and his sister spent all those years dealing with a man who piled lie on top of lie? Big lies were almost understandable, but not the ones about wineglasses and boats that didn’t exist.

  Poor Lori, she thought as she started searching with renewed vigor. There were a few cooking implements in the kitchen drawers but nothing else. Not one piece of paper. No old grocery lists, no receipts of any kind, no bills waiting to be paid.

  After an hour, they’d looked everywhere. Tate had held Casey up so she could search the top of the bedroom closet. They’d even looked for a concealed panel that led into an attic space. But there was nothing.

  The two of them flopped down on the couch, side by side, and stared out the windows at the pretty lake. They had found nothing that hinted at where Haines had taken young Lori.

  “If this were a movie,” Tate said, “there’d be a matchbook with a hotel name on it.”

  “Or a pad by the telephone with an imprint of an address. I’ve always wondered who writes so hard that they mark the page underneath.”

  “Don’t look at me. I’m just cast as a shirtless guy who throws women across his shoulder.”