by Nora Roberts
“Excuse me just a minute,” she said to Will and Logan.
She started to wind her way through the room, and broke her stride when his gaze skimmed over, then locked on her face.
She felt a little bump under her heart, and a quickening of pulse she found both baffling and embarrassing.
He just hones in, she thought. Those eyes just zeroed right on in so she felt—anyone would feel—that she was the only person in the room. A good trick in a space jammed with people and noise, and just a little disconcerting.
But her expression was easy and friendly as she walked to him.
“I’m so glad you could come.”
“When you throw a party, you mean it. I could see the lights from a mile away. You don’t actually know all these people, do you?”
“Never seen them before in my life. What can I get you to drink?”
“Club soda, lime.”
“There’s a bar set up over here.” To guide him, she laid a hand on his arm. “Let’s get you fixed up.”
“Thanks. Listen, I have something for you. A gift.”
He dug into his pocket as they crossed to the bar, then offered her a small wrapped box.
“That’s completely unnecessary, and awfully sweet.”
“Just a thanks for bailing me out with the gift for my niece.” He ordered his drink. “You look . . .amazing is the word that springs to mind, withspectacular coming right behind it.”
“Thank you.”
“From head.” His gaze skimmed down to her silver-heeled sandals—and the ruby-red toenails. “To toe.”
“My mama always said a woman wasn’t groomed unless her toenails were painted. It’s one of the few pieces of advice she gave me I agreed with. Should I open this now?”
He’d barely glanced at the rubies, though his amateur antiquer’s eye judged them to be vintage. But the toes. The toes were terrific.
“What?”
“The gift.” She smiled. It was hard not to be pleased, and a little bit smug, when a man was enraptured by your feet. “Should I open it now?”
“Oh, no, I wish you wouldn’t. If you open it later, and you hate it, you’ll have time to prepare a polite lie.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m opening it now.”
She tugged off the ribbon, lifted the top. Inside was a miniature clock, framed in silver filigree. “It’s lovely. It’s really lovely.”
“Antiquing’s a hobby of mine. Makes sense, considering. I figured with this house, you’d enjoy old things. There’s an inscription on the back. It got to me.”
She turned it over and read.
L, Count the hours. N
“Lovely, and romantic. It’s wonderful, Mitch, and certainly more than I deserve for picking out a toy.”
“It made me think of you.” When she lifted her head, he shook his. “That put a cynical look in your eye. But fact’s fact. I saw it, thought of you.”
“Does that happen often?”
“My thinking of you?”
“No, thinking of someone and buying her a charming gift.”
“From time to time. Not in some time, actually. Does it happen often on your end?”
She smiled a little. “Not in some time. Thank you, very much. I want to put this upstairs. Why don’t I introduce you to . . . oh, there’s Stella. Nobody can steer you through a party better than our Stella.”
“Mitch.” Stella held out a hand for him. “It’s good to see you again.”
“And you. You’re blooming,” he said. “It must be love.”
“I can confirm that.”
“And how are your boys?”
“They’re great, thanks. Conked out upstairs, and . . . oh.” She broke off when she saw the little clock. “Isn’t that sweet? So romantic and female.”
“Lovely, isn’t it?” Roz agreed. “It was a gift, for a very small favor.”
“You wouldn’t say small if you’d been on the receiving end of the phone call I got from my sister and my niece,” Mitch told her. “I’m not only officially forgiven, I’m currently enjoying favorite-uncle status.”
“Well then, obviously I deserve this. Stella, show Mitch around, will you? I just want to put this upstairs.”
“Sure.” And Stella noted the way Mitch’s gaze followed Roz out of the room.
“One question before we make the rounds. Is she seeing anyone?”
“No, she’s not.”
He grinned as he took Stella’s arm. “How about that?”
Roz mingled her way to the foyer, then started upstairs. It reminded her that she’d walked up these stairs at another party, with the voices and the music and lights behind her. And she’d stepped into the end of a relationship.
She wasn’t naive. She knew very well Mitch was asking her if she was interested in beginning a relationship, and was laying some groundwork so she would be. What was strange was that her answer wasn’t a flat no. What was strange, Roz thought as she walked to her bedroom, was not knowing the answer.
She slipped into the room to set the romantic little clock on her dresser. She couldn’t stop the smile as she traced the frame. A very thoughtful gift, she thought, and yes, her cynical side added that it was a very clever gift. Then again, a woman who’d been through two marriages was bound to have a healthy dose of cynicism.
A relationship with him might be interesting, even entertaining, and God knew she was due for some passion in her life. But it would also be complicated, possibly intense. And potentially sticky with the work she’d hired him to do.
She was allowing the man to write a book that involved her family history, and would certainly involve herself to some extent. Did she really want to become intimate with someone who could, if things burned out, slap her, and her family, in print?
Her experience with Bryce warned her that when things went bad, things got worse.
A lot to consider, she mused. Then she raised her eyes to the mirror.
She saw not only herself, her skin flushed, her eyes bright from her own thoughts, but the pale figure behind her.
Her breath caught, but she didn’t jolt. She didn’t spin around. She simply stood as she was, her eyes linked with Amelia’s in the glass.
“Twice in so many weeks,” she said calmly. “You, I imagine, would tell me to brush him off. You don’t like men much, do you, Amelia? Boys, yes, children, but men are a different kettle. No one but a man puts that kind of anger in a woman. I know. Was it one of my blood who put that anger in you?”
There was no answer, none expected.
“Let me finish this one-sided conversation by saying I have to think for myself, decide for myself, just as I always have. If I let Mitchell into my life, into my bed, the consequences, and the pleasure, will be on me.”
She took a slow breath. “But I’ll make you one promise. Whatever I do, or don’t, we won’t stop looking for the answers for you. Not now that we’ve started.”
Even as the figure began to fade, Roz felt something brush her hair, like a soft stroke of fingers that warmed even as it chilled.
She had to steady herself, pressing both hands to the top of the dresser. Then she meticulously freshened her lipstick, dabbed a bit more scent on her throat. And started back to the party.
She thought a ghostly caress would be enough of a shock for one night, but she had another, harder shock, as she reached the bottom of the stairs.
Bryce Clerk stood in her foyer.
The rage spewed through her, hot and horrid, and had a vision of herself flashing through her brain. Of leaping down the stairs, spitting out all the bitter insult and fury as she beat him senseless, and threw him out the door.
For an instant, that vision was so sharp, so clear, that the rest, the reality around her, blurred and vanished. She heard nothing but the pounding blood in her ears.
He beamed up at her as he helped a woman she knew from the garden club with her wrap. Roz clutched the newel post until control clamped down over temper and she was marginally sur
e her hand wouldn’t bunch into a fist and fly out.
She took the last step. “Mandy,” she said.
“Oh, Roz!” Amanda Overfield giggled, kissed both of Roz’s cheeks in a couple of quick pecks. She was Harper’s age, Roz knew, a silly, harmless, and wealthy young woman. Recently divorced herself, she’d only relocated in Memphis the previous summer. “Your house is justgorgeous . I know we’re awfully late, but we got . . .” She giggled again, and set Roz’s teeth on edge. “It doesn’t matter. I’m so glad you asked me to come. I’ve been dying to see your home. Where are my manners? Let me introduce you to my date. Rosalind Harper, this is Bryce Clerk.”
“We’ve met.”
“Roz. You look spectacular, as always.”
He started to lean down, as if to kiss her. She knew conversations nearby had died off, knew people were watching, listening. Waiting.
She spoke very softly. “Touch me, and I’ll kick your balls right up into your throat.”
“I’m an invited guest in your home.” Bryce’s voice was smooth, and lifted enough to reach interested ears. She watched him fix an expression of injured shock on his face. “Rudeness doesn’t become you.”
“I don’t understand.” Hands clasped together, Mandy looked from one to the other. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m sure you don’t. Mandy, why don’t you and your escort come out front with me a moment?”
She heard the vicious curse behind her, fought valiantly not to wince. She turned, and again kept her voice low. “Harper. Don’t. Please.”
When she shifted her body to block his, Harper’s gaze snapped from Bryce to his mother. “Once and for all.”
“I’m going to take care of it. Let me take care of it.” She rubbed a hand over his arm, felt his muscles quivering. “Please.”
“Not alone.”
“Two minutes.” She kissed his cheek, whispered in his ear. “He wants a scene. We won’t give it to him. He gets nothing from us. Two minutes, baby.”
She turned. “Mandy? Let’s get a little air, all right?” She took the woman by the arm.
Bryce held his ground. “This is ungracious of you, Rosalind. You’re embarrassing yourself, and your guests. I’d hoped we could be civil, at least.”
“I suppose your hopes are dashed then.”
She saw the change in his face as he looked over her shoulder. She followed his direction, noted that Mitch stood beside Harper now, and that Logan and David were both moving into the foyer. Their expressions were far lesscivil , she decided, than hers.
“Who’s the asshole?” Mitch’s question was barely a mutter, but Roz heard it, just as she heard Harper’s answer.
“Bryce Clerk. The garbage she tossed out a few years ago.”
Roz drew Mandy outside. Bryce was an idiot, she thought, and he might’ve enjoyed an altercation, a public one, with Harper. But he wouldn’t take on several strong, angry men, even for the pleasure of embarrassing her in her own home.
She was proven right as he walked stiffly out the door behind her. Roz shut it.
“Mandy, this is my ex-husband. The one I found upstairs, at a similar party, with his hands all over the naked breasts of a mutual acquaintance.”
“That’s a damn lie. There was nothing—”
Her head whipped around. “You’re free to tell Mandy your side of things, when you’re not standing on my doorstep. You are not welcome here. You will never be welcome here. If you come onto my property again, I will call the police and have you arrested for trespassing. And you can bet your lying, cheating ass I will prosecute. Now you have one minute, and one minute only, to get in your car and get off my land.”
She turned, smiled now into Mandy’s shocked face. “Mandy, you’re certainly welcome to come in, to stay. I’ll arrange for you to be taken home later if you like.”
“I think I should . . . I, ah, guess I should go.”
“All right, then. I’ll see you next month at the meeting. Merry Christmas.”
She stepped back, but didn’t open the door. “I believe you’re down to about forty seconds now before I go inside and contact the police.”
“Everyone in there knows what you are now,” Bryce shot out at her as he pulled Mandy toward his car.
“I’m sure they do.”
She waited until he’d gunned the engine, until he’d sped off.
Only then did she press a hand to her sick stomach, and squeeze her eyes shut until she could bank back the trembling rage and embarrassment.
She took two deep breaths, lifted her head high, then walked back into the house.
She smiled, brilliantly, then held out a hand for Harper’s.
“Well,” she said, giving his hand a squeeze as she scanned curious faces, “I could use a drink.”
FIVE
WHEN THE PARTYwas over, and the guests on their way home, Roz couldn’t settle. She knew better than to go up to her rooms, where she would just pace and rehash and twist herself up over this personal humiliation.
Instead, she made herself a big mug of coffee and took it out on the patio to enjoy the cool and the solitude. With the heaters humming and the lights still twinkling, she sat down to sip, to enjoy and maybe to brood just a little.
Harper was angry with her, she knew. Angry because she’d held him off from physically ejecting Bryce from the house. He was still young enough—and bless his heart, he was a man on top of it—to believe that brute force could solve this particular problem. And he loved her enough to chain his temper down because she’d asked.
At least this time he’d managed to chain it down.
The single other time Bryce had attempted to enter Harper House without invitation, she’d been too shocked to hold Harper off. Or David, for that matter. Bryce had been thrown out on his cheating ass, and she was small enough to gain some satisfaction from the way her boy had hauled the man out. But what had it solved?
Bryce had accomplished then just what he’d accomplished this round. He’d upset her.
How long, she wondered, just how goddamn long was she supposed to pay for one stupid, reckless mistake?
When she heard the door open behind her, Roz tensed up. She didn’t want to rehash this nasty little business with David or Harper, didn’t want a man to pat her head and tell her not to worry.
She wanted to sit and brood alone.
“I don’t know about you, but I could use some chocolate.”
Surprised, Roz watched Stella set a tray on the table. “I thought you’d gone up to bed.”
“I always like to decompress a little after a big party. Then there was the matter of these chocolate truffles, just sitting out there in the kitchen, calling my name.”
She’d brewed tea, Roz noted, and remembered Stella wasn’t one for late-night coffee. And she’d arranged the leftover truffles on a pretty plate.
“Hayley would be down, too, but Lily woke up. She must be cutting a tooth, because she’s fussing. It’s beautiful out here. Middle of December, and it’s just so beautiful. Not even much of a bite to the air yet.”
“Did you practice the small talk, decide you’d open with the weather?”
There had been a time when that aloof tone would have had Stella easing back. But those days were over. “I always figure the weather’s a good starter, especially for a couple of gardeners. I was going to segue into how spectacular the poinsettias are this year, but I guess we’ll skip that part.”
She selected a truffle, bit in. “But the chocolate was just a natural, all around. God, whoever invented these should be canonized.”
“Ask Hayley. If she doesn’t know who made the first chocolate truffle, she’ll find out.” Since the chocolate was there, Roz couldn’t come up with a good reason not to have one.
“I’ve been here nearly a year now,” Stella began.
“Is this your way of leading up to asking for a raise?”
“No, but good idea. I’ve worked for you for nearly a year, lived in the same house with you.
The second part is certainly longer than I intended.”
“No point in moving somewhere else, then moving again when you and Logan get married.”
“No, and I appreciate you understanding that, and making it easy for me not to shuffle my kids around. The fact is, even though I’m looking forward to getting married, and moving into Logan’s place—especially now that I’ve been getting my hands on it—I’ll miss being here. So will the boys.”
“It’s nice to hear.”
“Even with everything that went on last spring, maybe in some ways because of it, I’m attached to this house. And to you.”
“That’s nice to hear, too. You have a sweet heart to go with that orderly mind of yours, Stella.”
“Thanks.” She sat back in her chair, cupping her tea in both hands. Her flower-blue eyes were directly on Roz’s. “Living with and working for you for nearly a year, I know your mind and heart. At least as much as I can. One of the things I know is that despite your generosity, your hospitality, you’re a very private woman. And I know I’m stepping into that private area when I say I’m sorry about what happened tonight. I’m sorry and I’m angry and just a little bit stunned that some asshole would walk into your home, uninvited and unwelcomed, for the purpose of embarrassing you.”
When Roz said nothing, Stella took a long breath. “So, if you’re in the mood to eat truffles and trash the son of a bitch, I’d be happy to listen. If you’d rather sit out here alone, and let it fester, then I’ll take my tea and half these chocolates upstairs.”
For a moment, Roz just sat, sipping her coffee. Then she thought, what the hell, and had another chocolate. “You know, having lived here all my life, I have a number of friends, and a bevy, we could say, of acquaintances. But I haven’t had what you might call close, important female friends. There’s a reason for that—”
She lifted a finger, wagged it before Stella could speak. “The reason being my own preference to an extent, and that having its roots in being widowed young. So many of my social circle, in the female area, became just a little wary. Here I was, young, attractive, fairly well off—and available. Or so they assumed. In the other camp were those eager, just innately, to pair me up with a man. A friend, a brother, a cousin, whatever. I found both of those attitudes annoying. As a result, I got out of the habit of having close women friends. So I’m a little rusty. I consider you a friend, the best I have of the female persuasion.”