House of Strangers (Harlequin Super Romance)

by McSparren, Carolyn

  Someone was in the house. Heart attack or not, it was time to call out.

  He started to open his mouth when a huge black object hurtled through the hall door and hit him full in the chest.

  Paul’s feet slid out from under him, and he landed flat on his back, barely managing to keep his head from cracking against the bare floor.

  He managed a couple of gasps before the black object reached out a long, maroon tongue and licked him straight across the face.

  “Get off me!” Paul didn’t think attack dogs were trained to lick their quarry, so he felt relatively safe shoving this one off his chest.

  “Dante!”

  Footsteps pelted down the back stairs. A moment later he saw a figure silhouetted in the shadowy doorway. “What are you doing here?”

  “I might ask you the same thing,” he said. “Call off your moose.”

  “Dante, get off him. Down.”

  Dante gave Paul one last quick swipe with his tongue, then sank to the floor beside him and stared with beseeching eyes.

  “What kind of dog is this, anyway? I’ve never seen one like it.”

  “He’s a Neopolitan mastiff.”

  Paul rolled to a sitting position and found himself nose to nose with the mastiff. “He makes bloodhounds look cheerful.”

  “He’s really a happy dog. It’s just his woebegone expression and all those wrinkles that make him look miserable. Listen, I’m awfully sorry. He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

  “Just my dignity, Miss…uh?”

  “Ann Corrigan.” She offered a hand, and when he took it with his left, she helped him back to his feet.

  “Ah—you’re the Ann Buddy was talking about.”

  “You have to be Mr. Bouvet. Do you need to sit down or anything?”

  “Not quite that decrepit, thank you.”

  “I didn’t mean…I guess you heard the piano. Buddy swore you wouldn’t be back this afternoon, so I borrowed his key to start taking pictures of the inside of the house. When I saw the piano, I couldn’t resist.”

  “You play well.”

  “No, I don’t.” Ann laughed. “I play one tempo—slow. And one style—easy with lots of mistakes—although I spent every Tuesday afternoon for years on that piano bench. I took lessons from Miss Addy.”

  “The lady who owned the house.”

  “Only for the last few years. It belonged to the Delaneys. When Mrs. Delaney died, she left it to her sister for her lifetime. Miss Addy must have taught most of the kids in the county to play the piano.”

  “You sounded good.”

  “I was not one of her star pupils. When I wasn’t in school I was either out with the hunt or pitching for the softball team. I hated to practice. Scales, yuck. Now I wish I’d worked harder.”

  “I attempted to play the tuba in my high-school band. It was a grave error. I lasted less than six weeks. Football was easier, except that I wasn’t big enough for a college scholarship.”

  Dante had not moved from his position but followed the conversation like a tennis spectator, turning his head from one to the other.

  Ann lifted her hand, palm up, and Dante hauled himself to his feet and went to stand beside her. He had no tail, so his entire rear end wagged.

  “Look, we don’t have to stand here in the middle of an empty room,” Ann said. “Let’s sit on the window seat in the conservatory—if you don’t mind getting dirty.”

  Paul followed her through the archway at the left and into the conservatory. She perched on one of the cushions. “It’s pretty dusty.”

  “I’m already dirty.” He sat far enough along the curve of the windows so that he had a good view of her. “Does Dante always greet people so enthusiastically?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry about that. I spend a lot of time in empty, isolated old buildings by myself. When I’m really doing good work, I sometimes keep going all night. There are never any curtains at the windows, so it’s like I’m standing on stage under a spotlight while the rest of the world outside is in darkness. I’d feel like a sitting duck without Dante as my early-warning system and my guardian.”

  On hearing his name, the dog laid his head on Ann’s lap. She scratched his small, pointed ears.

  “Not much of a guardian, although he looks scary enough,” Paul said.

  “He’d never bite a living soul, but just having all 180 pounds of him land on you and lick your face would scare most bad guys into cardiac arrest.”

  “Almost worked with me.”

  “He doesn’t usually go looking for trouble. I guess he decided that since this was an empty house, I must be working. Sometimes he’s a bear of very little brain.”

  “Has he ever had to launch into action before?”

  “A couple of times in D.C. he barked and may have scared off the bad guys, but not since I’ve moved back down here. I didn’t even hear you from upstairs. He decided to investigate on his own.”

  “Buddy says you know this house well.”

  “I ought to. Miss Addy was not only my piano teacher, she was my great-aunt.”

  Paul froze. Ann Corrigan was a Delaney? “I thought her sister owned the house and that the other lady only had life tenancy.”

  “Her older sister, Aunt Maribelle, was the one who married into the Delaneys and inherited the house when her husband died. But Aunt Addy lived with her forever, and Aunt Maribelle didn’t want her to have to move.”

  “So Mrs. Maribelle Delaney was also your great-aunt?”

  Ann nodded. “My grandmother was the youngest of the three girls.”

  “Is she still—”

  “Alive?” Ann grinned. “Is she ever.”

  “So your father…”

  “Gram is my mother’s mother.”

  “So you really are a Delaney?”

  “More of a kissing cousin by marriage. Practically everybody in this area is kin to everybody else.”

  Paul looked at her closely for the first time, trying to discern something in her face that might show her relationship to the Delaneys.

  A moment later he decided she was worth exploring for herself. She was of average height, average weight and average coloring. Her medium-brown hair was fairly long and tied back tightly by a red scarf. She had a nicely rounded body with long legs and a generous bosom.

  She looked as though she laughed a lot—the sort of girl an earlier generation would have called “a good egg.”

  Her face was too strong-boned for classic beauty and her mouth a bit too wide. Might be interesting to taste it.

  Her eyes were her best feature. They were large, slightly tilted at the corners and the sort of gray-blue that changes color with mood or the color of the background. Although she’d long since chewed off her lipstick—if indeed she wore any—her lips were still the color of a not-quite-ripe pomegranate. Paul could see no resemblance to the Delaney in the only photo he possessed.

  She was a far cry from the pencil-thin flight attendants he was used to, but judging from the muscles in her arms, she was in good shape. Probably her job required a certain amount of strength. He felt an immediate attraction.

  He had certainly never expected to meet a woman like this in Rossiter.

  “If you want to know the history of the house and the family,” she said, “check out the library in Somerville and the courthouse records. There’s also been a newspaper in Fayette County since before the Civil War. I’m sure they have copies at the morgue.”

  He stiffened. “Why would I be that interested?”

  “I just thought that since you bought—”

  “Of course. Now that it’s mine, I should find out all I can about its history. I’ve never owned an old house before.”

  “I can give you a list of movies to rent that will scare you even more than Buddy did,” she said. “The Money Pit comes to mind.”

  “So you think I made a bad bargain?”

  She put up her hands. “Oh, no! I think you made a wonderful bargain. It’s just that you’re going to ha
ve to live through three or four months of hell to get to paradise.”

  “A few months seems a short time to wait for paradise.”

  “You won’t think so a month from now.” She stood and Dante walked around to her left side and sat at her heel. “I’m glad to have met you. But I really do have to take some pictures before the rest of the light goes.”

  “Of course.” He stood, as well. “What are you taking pictures of?”

  “Details of any architectural detail that may have to be re-created, as well as the pediments and pilasters outside that we may have to rebuild or duplicate. Pictures of the scamoglio on the staircase—”

  “Scamoglio?”

  “It’s a fancy kind of plaster technique that looks like polished marble. You didn’t think that staircase wall was real marble, did you?”

  “I assumed it was some kind of painted finish.”

  Ann laughed. “Perish the thought. I’ve already taken some shots of the overmantel and the fireplaces, but I wanted to take at least a couple more rolls before the crews start cleaning up.”

  “Buddy says you can salvage the mural in the dining room.”

  “I’m going to give it my best shot, although it may be too fragile to leave where it is. You can always make a screen out of it.”

  “You can get it off the wall?”

  “We’ll see.” She stuck out her hand. “Sorry we met under these circumstances, but I’m glad at least we did meet. Next time Dante will know you’re a friend. He won’t knock you down again.”

  “Great.” He stopped in the front hall. “I didn’t see a car out front. How did you come? Did Buddy drop you?”

  “Oh, no, I walked. I live in the loft upstairs over the flower shop on the square.”

  “I assumed the lofts were used for storage. Didn’t realize anyone lived there.”

  “Actually, I have both the end lofts—the one over the real-estate office, as well. I use one for living and one for working.”

  “What’s in the far building, the one with the bear?”

  “That? Trey Delaney uses it as a kind of second office when he wants to get away from the farm.” She raised her eyebrows. “As well as from his wife Sue-sue and the children. Well, I’m off upstairs.”

  “And I’m heading back to the motel. See you tomorrow?”

  “Maybe.” She waved, picked up the digital camera that hung around her neck and trotted up the back stairs. He could hear the click of Dante’s nails on the naked risers.

  He watched her rear end in the tight jeans. Nice to see a woman who actually looked womanly. The sort a man could enjoy holding in his arms.

  He’d be willing to bet that even in jeans, she’d draw the eye of every man in a restaurant. There was an aura of sexuality about her, of passion just beneath the surface. He doubted she was aware of it.

  He pulled himself up short. He had not come to Rossiter for female companionship, no matter how appealing. And there were excellent reasons not to become involved with any Delaney kin, even a kissing cousin. His kissing cousin actually, although he had no idea how to figure out their relationship. He had a job to do, a promise to fulfill, not only to Tante Helaine, but to his mother.

  So Trey Delaney used the office with the bear outside. Paul would have to find out the story behind that bear. Might give him an excuse to start asking questions about Trey at the café. He very much wanted to meet Trey. Always a good thing to know your enemy. And they were, after all, kin.

  CHAPTER THREE

  BY THE TIME Paul got back to his motel after dinner in a fast-food restaurant, all he wanted was a hot shower and bed. His damn shoulder was no longer just an ache, but a throbbing pain, and he still had his physical-therapy exercises to do. The hit he’d taken from Ann’s dog hadn’t helped any.

  He turned on the television, muted the sound, picked up the telephone and dialed Giselle’s number. A moment later a youthful male voice answered.

  “Harry, it’s Uncle Paul. May I speak to your mother?”

  Without replying, the teenager yelled, “Mom, it’s Uncle Paul.”

  He heard the telephone drop with a clunk and his cousin’s voice. “Harry, you have the manners of a tarantula! And turn down that music!” Then a moment later, “Paul, why didn’t you call last night? I’ve been so worried.”

  “Sorry, Giselle. Landed too late to disturb you.”

  “Was your car waiting for you? No dents?”

  Paul laughed. “Yes, Giselle. You can tell Harry that his buddy seems to have driven all the way down from New Jersey without so much as a speeding ticket. He also washed the car, cleaned the inside and left it sitting beside the airstrip with the keys under the fender in the magnetic case.”

  Giselle gave a sigh of relief. “Thank heaven. I had visions of Kevin doing a Thelma and Louise somewhere on the Blue Ridge Parkway.”

  “He even left me copies of his gas charges on the front seat. Very responsible young man. Tell Harry I’ll send both him and Kevin a bonus.”

  “Have you decided to give up this madness and come home where I can look after you?”

  “You’re already looking after two teenage sons and a husband. I’m fine on my own.”

  “Humph,” Giselle said. The sound came out with a Gallic flavor. Giselle spoke both English and French without accent, but her wordless expressions still sounded more French than English. “You don’t belong down there. What good is it going to do? You won’t find anything. That Paul David Delaney is dead, assuming he is the right Paul David Delaney.”

  “Oh, he’s the right Delaney—my honorable father, pillar of society, richest man in the county, the man who married and abandoned my mother and then killed her when she found him.”

  “I know you and Maman believed that, but you could be wrong. The detective said a serial killer or someone could’ve picked her up along the way. You don’t even know for certain whether she even met your father after she went down to Memphis.”

  “Tante Helaine, your mother, never believed that my mother was murdered by a stranger at the precise moment she was due to confront my father, and neither do I. Too big a coincidence. No, he killed her all right. I’ve always known it in my heart. I had no way to check it out before.”

  “No one has ever found her body….”

  “That’s another thing. I want to find what he did with her, give her a decent burial if that’s possible.”

  “After thirty years? What would be left to identify? Besides, you can’t bring a dead man to justice.”

  “Well, I want someone to pay. I want to rub the noses of every living Delaney in the muck of what Paul Delaney did. I want them to admit in public that my father was a murderer.”

  “The present generation had nothing to do with it. Anyone who might have known about it is long dead.”

  “The present generation benefited from my mother’s death. Why should they live out their lives thinking their father was a paragon? I promised Tante Helaine I would expose him, and I will. Let them deal with the truth for a change.”

  “Then go tell the son what you suspect, who you are. He’s your half brother, after all.”

  “And have the entire clan circle the wagons? No, until I have incontrovertible proof that my father killed my mother, proof that would convince a jury, nobody down here is going to know I have any connection with the Delaneys. Now that I own the family home I have the perfect cover story—it’s natural to want to find out the history of an old house. These people will fall over themselves regaling me with anecdotes. The Delaneys were the most important family in the county. Trey Delaney is still one of the richest men. Certainly he owns the most land. I’m really looking forward to meeting him.” He tried to keep the sarcasm out of his voice, but Giselle knew him too well.

  “You should never have promised Maman you’d avenge Aunt Michelle. You want to destroy the Delaneys for Maman, but in the end, I think you are the one who will suffer. The kind of hate my mother carried around corrodes like acid. It ruined her life
, and in the end I think it contributed to her death. I know you’re still angry that you can’t fly big jets any longer, but don’t transfer your anger to the Delaneys. That’s a whole different issue.”

  Paul laughed. “Don’t psychoanalyze me, Giselle. I don’t blame the Delaneys for that. Nor for the fact that Tracy walked out on me because she couldn’t take looking after an invalid, nor for the pain in my shoulder. I blame them because I grew up without either a mother or a father.”

  “Stop it! Maman and Dad loved you like a son.”

  “Of course they did. And I loved them both. But having your aunt and uncle take you in isn’t quite the same thing as growing up with the man and woman whose genes you carry. In my case I didn’t even know who’d donated half of my genes until a few months ago.”

  “I have a very bad feeling about this. Not for those Delaneys, but for you.”

  “Who said revenge is a dish best eaten cold? After thirty years it’s damned near frozen.”

  “What if you like them? The ones who are left, I mean?”

  “I’ll try not to let that happen. If it does, I’ll deal with it.”

  “Please call me every night or e-mail me. I want to know everything that’s going on.”

  “I promise. I love you, Giselle. Regards to Jerry.”

  “Good night, mon frère.”

  He put the phone back in its cradle and lay back on the bed.

  “Scamoglio,” he said, and laughed. “Who knew?”

  At least Ann was enthusiastic about something other than Botox injections in her forehead. He turned the sound up on the TV, moved to the floor and began the exercises to stretch and strengthen his right shoulder and arm. He must be getting better. The tears from the pain didn’t begin to run down his cheeks and into his ears for a good five minutes.

  “GRAM, WE’RE STARTING the Delaney restoration job tomorrow morning,” Ann said as she reached for another ear of sweet corn. “It’s going to be fabulous.”

  “Pass the butter to your daughter, Nancy,” Sarah Pulliam said.

  “She does not need any more butter,” Ann’s mother said shortly. But she passed it anyway. “Mother, you are a great cook, but does the word cholesterol mean anything to you?”