Leslie LaFoy

by Jacksons Way

  Jackson, realizing that he hadn't even noticed the house, looked up. It was every bit as big as MacPhaull House, two stories high, but made of whitewashed clapboard instead of brick. It sure wasn't his idea of small, fairly or otherwise. His house in Texas would have fit in it twice.

  “I love Mrs. Theorosa's front garden,” Lindsay said softly, walking past him and up the front walkway. “It's so informal, so welcoming.”

  “And so very different than the front walk at MacPhaull House,” he observed, following.

  “Ours isn't a very inviting house, is it?” Lindsay bent to sweep dried leaves from the new growth beside the front steps. “Perhaps when you're done tearing down curtains, I'll have you rip out the landscaping.”

  “Or maybe,” he countered, watching her tend the plants, “you could sell your house to someone who likes that sort of formality and move into this one.”

  “What about Agatha?”

  “Maybe you could offer to include her with the house at no extra charge.”

  Lindsay laughed and straightened. “No one in their right mind and who knows her would consider that an incentive, Jack. No, I'm afraid I'm stuck with her.”

  “Well,” Jack drawled, looking up at the house again, “I'm thinking that she'd decide to move in with Henry rather than live in such squalor with you.”

  “It isn't squalor; it's a charming house.”

  “Maybe we ought to take a look inside before you render judgment. Still have the key?”

  With a flourish, she produced it from her reticule, gathered her skirts in hand, and skipped up the front steps. Jack smiled and went after her. He'd been right; time and other matters had been just what he'd needed. His blood had cooled and he could look at Lindsay now without being battered by carnal fantasies. And that was good; very good. While she might be intrigued by his flirtations and daring enough to hold her ground in the face of them, beneath it all, she was still sweet and gentle and absolutely inexperienced. If she did indeed want to be seduced, she deserved, at the very least, a man willing to make it a slow and tender affair.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE CURTAINS WERE LIGHT, lacy things and early afternoon sunlight flooded through them. Jackson watched as Lindsay walked into the center of the front room and stopped. Turning a slow circle, she said, “Surely the family intends to take the furnishings out before the sale.”

  “Seems to me that if they'd wanted any of it, they'd have taken it before now,” he observed, closing the door behind them. “Gregory said Mrs. Theorosa had been gone two years.”

  “How sad.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “To have the possessions of your lifetime not wanted by anyone,” she whispered. “It's sad, Jack. Poor Mrs. Theorosa.”

  “She probably doesn't know,” he countered rationally. “And if she does, she probably doesn't care.”

  “Well, I care,” Lindsay retorted, with a degree of passion that caught him by surprise. “She had beautiful things and no one's even bothered to cover them with sheets to protect them from the dust.”

  Jackson looked around the room, noting the mismatched furniture, the hardwood floors covered in places by hooked wool rugs, and the wide array of little mementos scattered across the tabletops and the mantel. A thick coating of dust covered everything. He squinted, trying to imagine what it would look like cleaned up. Unfashionably colorful, he decided.

  “Let's go see what's upstairs, Jack.”

  Bedrooms. There always were. And while his curiosity didn't particularly demand a trip to see for sure, the tone of Lindsay's voice was that of a woman on an exciting adventure of discovery. If it made her happy, he'd go along without a negative word. Jackson darted ahead of her and led the way, pushing through the cobwebs that had been allowed to drape the stairwell. The steps were uncarpeted and solid oak; not a one of them creaked.

  The flooring upstairs was of the same oak, and a long wool carpet lay the length of the central hallway, which was barely a third of the width of that at MacPhaull House. A window at the end of the corridor allowed light in, making the small space feel more cozy than tight. Four doors opened into the hall; two on each side and opposite each other. Lindsay was making her way from door to door, opening each, pausing to study each room's interior, smiling, and then gently closing the door before moving on to the next.

  “The roof must be in fairly good shape. I don't see any water stains on the ceilings,” he offered. “And the walls don't show any cracks. Whoever built this place apparently built it well.”

  “Four bedrooms. Lovely, all of them. Mrs. Theorosa liked her flowers, didn't she? The pansy room is my favorite,” she declared, opening a door and, with a gesture, inviting him to look for himself.

  He dutifully stepped to the door, prepared to nod and mutter something suitably agreeable. It was, however, impossible to say anything at all for the first few moments. He'd never seen anything like it. Despite the coating of dust, he didn't need to squint to see the colors. The walls were purple; not a sedate deep plum as those in his room at MacPhaull House, but a brilliant royal shade. Lace curtains the color of lilacs, tied back at the sides with big bows of yellow satin, adorned the two windows in the room. The pale purple color was repeated on the ceiling, making it look like a soft dawn sky. A double-sized oak four-poster bed with a high headboard and a rolled-edge footboard commanded almost one entire wall. The coverlet was a quilted affair of yellow, with appliqued pansies running riot across the surface. Wool area rugs ran the length of the bed on both sides, each a series of huge purple and yellow pansies seemingly laid out side by side.

  What did the other rooms look like? he wondered. One would be roses, he'd bet money on it. Another would likely be peonies. The fourth, only God knew. Tulips maybe? Irises?

  “The colors are so bright and bold, don't you think?” Lindsay asked happily.

  “That they are,” he admitted. “Mrs. Theorosa certainly wasn't a slave to decorating fashion, was she?”

  “No, she wasn't, and I think she's to be commended for it. Once you're done with refurbishing the MacPhaull House draperies and the landscaping, perhaps—”

  “Perhaps not,” he interrupted with a chuckle, knowing where she was going. “I'm a terrible painter. I tried to help Billy when he built his place, but halfway through the front room, he threw me out. If you're thinking of repainting MacPhaull House, you'd be better off to hire it done. Whatever it costs, it'll be worth it.”

  “You and my father didn't live in the same house?” Lindsay asked, tilting her head to study him. “Somehow, I assumed that you did.”

  Jackson shrugged before leaning his shoulder against the doorjamb. “I lived with him for a few years after my mother died, but eventually moved back to the house my parents had built. It's nothing fancy. Four rooms and a single story. Billy's house, though, is a lot like this one. By Texas standards, it's considered a palace.”

  “Does anyone live in it now that he's gone?”

  “Nope. But you'll be glad to know that I did put sheets over the furniture.”

  “What do you intend to do with it? Sell it?”

  “Selling it would require selling a good-sized piece of land for the new owner to make a living on. I can't—and won't—do that. So I guess it'll just sit empty.”

  “You won't move into it?” she pressed quietly. “Since my father left you everything, he surely left you his house, too.”

  “He did.” Jackson pictured the big house in his mind. As always, Billy stood on the wide front porch, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets as he stared off into the hills. “Maybe down the road,” Jackson said softly, “I'll think about hauling my gear over that way. But doing it right now wouldn't feel right.” He gave her a rueful smile. “Just a little too quick to pick the bones, if you know what I mean.”

  “I do,” she said, nodding. “I wanted the larger space of my mother's room for a long time before I actually moved my belongings in there. And there are times when I regret acting on the
notion. The issue of picking the bones aside, there's also the matter of exorcising the shadows of those who lived there before.” She looked around the pansy room. “Mrs. Theorosa left good shadows; the kind that invite you to pick up life where she left off.”

  He'd never thought of it that way before. But since Lindsay had made him think of things in that way, he could see that Billy's house did have its shadows, the kind that said he hadn't been quite finished with living yet. Finishing Billy's work would be the price of living easily within its walls. Just what Billy expected him to do was a complete mystery, though. It wasn't the everyday kind of work around a ranch; it was something special. You could feel it even if you couldn't precisely define it.

  Lindsay moved past him, bringing him from his musing. “Where are you going?” he asked, pulling the door to the pansy room closed and following her toward the head of the stairs.

  She didn't look back. Holding her skirts above her ankles, she moved down the stairs resolutely. “There's bound to be some oil and dusting cloths in the pantry.”

  “You're going to clean?”

  “I know how.” She reached the main floor and turned toward the back of the house, adding, “Just because I have a housekeeper doesn't mean that I haven't taken my turn at the work.”

  Jack stopped in the main room. “This isn't your house, Lindsay.”

  “I know you were teasing,” she called from the kitchen area, “but maybe I will sell MacPhaull House and move in here. I like it. I feel welcomed by it.”

  That was a twist he hadn't expected. MacPhaull House would bring a tidy little sum of money. “But what about all your mother's possessions?” he asked, gauging the depth of her commitment to the notion. “The ones she spent a lifetime acquiring. You won't have room in here for hers and Mrs. Theorosa's, too.”

  “Agatha and Henry can have them,” she answered, stepping from the kitchen into the dining room with a rag and a small bottle of pale yellow liquid. She set both items on the sideboard and, unbuttoning her pelisse, continued, saying, “Besides, nothing was special to my mother. She never put her heart and soul into purchasing anything. She simply stopped by a store, described the space she was filling, and told them to send whatever they had that would be fashionably suitable.”

  “How do you know Mrs. Theorosa didn't do the same thing?”

  “Because nothing matches,” Lindsay explained, tossing her pelisse over the back of a dining-room chair. “That tells me that each piece has a unique story, a special history of how it came to be here.”

  “You're sentimental.”

  “And that's bad?” she asked, pulling her dress sleeves back from her wrists.

  “No. Just surprising.”

  She arched a brow and smiled. “Because I'm a hard-edged businesswoman?”

  “Lindsay, sweetheart,” he retorted, chuckling softly, “you're not hard-edged if you consider where your tenants will move should you decide to sell a property. You're certainly intelligent, but I think you've also got the biggest heart in all of New York.”

  “Which isn't necessarily good,” she added, picking up her cleaning supplies.

  He watched her douse the rag as he said, “It has its drawbacks in your world—as Otis Vanderhagen so clearly pointed out this morning.”

  “So if you know I'm softhearted,” she asked, setting to work on the dining-room table, “why are you surprised to discover that I'm sentimental?”

  “How you came to be so nice is something of a puzzle.”

  She stopped and looked over at him, her brow arched higher than before and her smile bright. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Well,” he drawled, feeling a desperate need for the distraction of movement, “I'm thinking that from the bits and pieces I've heard about your mother, she wasn't the one who passed it on to you.” Heading for the dining-room windows, he continued his observations, saying, “It sure wasn't Billy; he didn't stick around long enough. Agatha and Henry are clearly out of the running.” Opening a window and letting fresh air into the house, he added, “Was it Richard?”

  “No, not really,” she supplied, going back to her task as he continued to open windows. “Richard's always been frustrated by my tendency to, as he says, think with my heart first and my head second. No, if anyone deserves the credit for shaping me, it's Abigail Beechum. In many respects, she's been more like a mother to me than the one to whom I was actually born.”

  “So if you were to move here, she'd come with you.”

  “I'd ask her to, but the decision would be hers. I think she'd like this house as much as I do.”

  “What about Primrose? Would you bring her, too?”

  “If she wanted to come along, yes. But I doubt that she would. She's very active in her church and all of her family members live within just a few miles of MacPhaull House. I don't think she'd like living so far away from those comforts. They mean a lot to her.”

  “Do you go to church?” Jackson asked, gathering the antimacassars from the backs and arms of the parlor upholstery.

  “The last time I went was to my mother's funeral,” she replied brightly. “It was a very tasteful affair—the hired mourners weeping to perfection—and was attended by the city's first and foremost citizens. The musicians played a wonderful selection of dirges and the mercy meal was catered by one of the finest restaurants in the city. No expense was spared.”

  The loss of her mother didn't seem to affect Lindsay too deeply. It was almost as though she were talking about the passing of a complete stranger. He remembered his own mother's funeral and how he'd embarrassed himself by sobbing like a baby in Billy's arms. God. Deliberately pushing his memories aside, he observed, “Sounds like you put on a fine affair.”

  “All I had to do was take the right dress out of my closet, put it on, and get there on time. Mother did all of the planning and made all the arrangements herself.”

  “So she knew she was dying.”

  “No, actually the end came quite suddenly,” Lindsay said matter-of-factly, as she moved into the main room with her oil-soaked rag and started to work. “Mother didn't trust me to make her final social appearance the graciously memorable occasion she envisioned. Rather than taking a chance at being the guest of honor at an utterly botched affair of my making, she spent years planning her own service down to the last detail. There were even invitations to be sent out. All I had to do was write in the date and time.”

  Invitations? To a funeral? “You're kidding,” he laughingly accused, shaking the antimacassars out an open window.

  “I am not,” she countered, chuckling. “I didn't post them, though. I thought that was going too far. I fully expect, however, to have her meet me at the Pearly Gates, determined to have me barred for disobeying her edict.”

  The more he heard about Lydia MacPhaull, the less he liked her. And the more he understood why Billy had left and why Lindsay had spent her life in the offices of the MacPhaull Company. “She even had the family mausoleum spiffed up and expanded for her arrival, didn't she?” he guessed.

  “How did you know?” Lindsay asked, laughing outright.

  “It just figures that she'd've done something like that.”

  Sobering, Lindsay paused in her dusting. Staring down at the tabletop, she said softly, “I always understood why my father left and never came back. Even though I was a child, Jack, I knew that he wasn't happy and why.” She lifted her gaze to meet his. “I would have left, too. If I could have.”

  Damn Billy for leaving her alone. “But you eventually got old enough to walk out the door,” he reminded her as gently as he could. “You didn't have to stay.”

  “I suppose you're right, in theory,” she admitted with a shrug, and went back to her work. “In a practical sense, though, the circumstances have never allowed it.”

  Watching her and thinking that she was the very picture of contented and efficient domesticity, he pointed out, “You could have gotten married. You can't tell me you've never had a proposal.”

&nbs
p; “Three, in fact. But none of them were matches Mother approved of and so they were more firmly than politely declined. The one potential match Mother did approve of and encouraged me to pursue”—she paused and then made a small tsking sound—“didn't end quite the way she thought it would.”

  “That would be the fellow who was supposed to be a Romeo and wasn't,” he contributed carefully, not at all certain how much she wanted to tell him about the ill-fated affair, but sensing that it rested heavily on her shoulders and that the burden would be eased if she could bring herself to share it.

  “That would be the one,” she replied flippantly. “And as it turned out, he wasn't much of a gentleman, either.”

  “Oh, yeah?” he drawled nonchalently, even as his mind raced along the tracks of myriad possibilities. “I hope Richard or Henry called him to task for you.”

  “The lapse in judgment—among the various and sundry other shortcomings—was perceived to be mine, not his.” She laughed and added, “Abigail did, however, sincerely offer to hunt him down and beat him to death with an umbrella for me.”

  Lapse in judgment? Just what great social sin had Lindsay committed? Had she held the man's hand in public? And what shortcomings? Jack hadn't known Lindsay all that long, but certainly long enough to know that she didn't have any flaws that would inspire a man to run in the other direction. Whoever Romeo was, he'd been a damn fool for walking away from Lindsay MacPhaull. She was better off without him. Jack was about to tell her that when she suddenly stopped working and looked out the living room window.

  “Jack, it's going to storm. If we don't leave before it starts raining—”

  “The road back to town will be impassable and we'll be stuck out here,” he finished for her. “I'm ready to go any time you are.”

  But he wasn't ready, he realized, as he watched her glance around the room, her expression wistful. He wanted to stay here. With her. The storm could pound down and he wouldn't care if they ever got back to MacPhaull House. They'd clean house and talk some more and he'd find some wood in a pile out back and build them a fire in the main room when the sun went down. And they'd talk into the night, and when it got late, he'd build a fire for her in the hearth of the pansy room and he'd make love to her until the sun rose.