“I did.” Her amusement was quickly turning to annoyance. “It’s an honest living. I pay my taxes same as you do.”
His laugh was husky, a low, amused rumble. “How do you know I pay my taxes? Writers are notorious when it comes to bookkeeping.”
“I didn’t know you were a writer.” She signaled for a right turn and smiled sweetly into his eyes. “I’m afraid I don’t recognize your name.”
“No reason why you should,” he said. “I write under a pseudonym.” He reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out a pack of Marlboros. “Mind if I smoke?”
“Yes.” She stopped the car while McCallum opened the large gates to the Lakeland House property and waved her through. She maneuvered her stretch up the narrow, twisting driveway toward the back of the main house. “I’d rather you didn’t.”
With her peripheral vision she was able to note the amused, curious glance Joe shot at her as he stuck the cigarettes back in his pocket.
“Thanks,” Meg said. “It's a rotten habit.”
“You tell your paying customers they can’t smoke?”
“You’re not a paying customer.”
“Point taken.” He slid the pack of cigarettes back into his pocket as McCallum came to a stop in front of the main house.
Anna’s house was an old white frame building that dated back to the early 1800s that had once served as an inn and restaurant. Mullioned windows framed with crisp black shutters and pine-green window boxes looked down on the flower beds and rolling front lawn. When Anna and her husband had purchased the property some thirty years before, it had been rotting from within. They had expended a lot of love and even more money to resurrect it and the smaller cottages that surrounded it.
From the first second she saw Lakeland House nearly five years ago, Meg had felt as if she’d come home. Even now, on a sad occasion, it seemed to welcome her. She glanced at Joe and saw a bittersweet smile on his face that told her he understood too.
She maneuvered her car into a double space away from the crowd of Mercedes and Caddys and Volvos that were parked closer to the house. She turned off the ignition and unsnapped her seat belt.
“Well, come on then,” McCallum said as she and Joe climbed out of the limo. “We have an audience awaiting us inside.”
“An audience? I thought it was just for Anna’s family and close friends.” An attack of nerves grabbed Meg around her midsection.
“And that it is.” McCallum led the way up the cobbled drive past the bare rosebushes that would be crimson with blossoms come June. “Just an intimate group of Anna’s family and twenty-seven addled artists and egocentric writers.” Joe’s sardonic grin brought McCallum up short. “Present company excepted, of course.”
The big house smelled of perfume and liquor and food, and Meg longed to be outside again, breathing the swift, sharp scent of pine. The living room was through the passageway on their left, and she could clearly hear buzzes of conversation punctuated by the tinkling sound of ice cubes rattling against glass. For a second she expected to see Anna hurrying down the corridor, her plump arms outstretched toward Meg in greeting, and she had to blink for a second to force the image—so clear, so cutting—from her mind.
McCallum bounded up the uncarpeted wooden steps two at a time.
“After you,” Joe said. “I’ll ride shotgun.”
She cast him a quick look over her shoulder. “You write Westerns?”
He laughed. “Among other things.”
"So you're one of those black hat, white hat kind of guys."
"My characters are," he said easily. "I'm more a shades-of-grey kind of guy."
"A few of Joseph's works were turned into television movies," Patrick McCallum said with almost paternal pride. "I believe Anna has them all captured on tape for posterity."
"Seriously?" Television was Meg's guilty pleasure and she wondered if she'd seen any of them.
"They weren't exactly High Noon," he said with a shrug of his shoulders, "but they paid the bills."
They reached the immense library at the opposite end of the second-floor hallway. Meg could almost feel Anna's warm arms around her and suddenly she knew she would be all right.
#
Joe, however, was not faring as well. The lighthearted banter was a mask, a cover for the way his gut had been twisting ever since they drove up the snaking, tree-lined driveway. Anna hovered over everything; he could hear her voice over a half-written manuscript, smell the pungent aroma of the cup of red Egyptian tea she always kept at her side. It was as if absolutely nothing had changed at all.
But the second he stepped through the door to the enormous library that had been Anna’s domain, he knew beyond doubt that everything had. The room looked the same—still the walls of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, still the heavy leaded windows with diamond-shaped panes of glass, the Turkish carpet beneath his feet. But the spark was gone. That inexplicable something that had made this room so special had disappeared with Anna’s death, and it made him want to turn tail and run like a scared kid.
Of course, he was a grown man now and not able to allow himself the privileges of youth, no matter how tempting they might be, so he just followed Meg Lindstrom toward the two empty leather wing chairs near the center of the room.
People he’d known during his time at Lakeland, people he’d never met before, stopped him with hearty hellos that made him question their sobriety. Nowhere but in the eyes of the limo driver had he seen anything approaching the sadness he felt over Anna’s death.
He claimed the empty seat next to Meg as Patrick McCallum took his place at the desk near the window.
“We’ll begin as soon as everyone is seated,” McCallum announced.
The high school reunion spirit had had prevailed earlier disappeared as people hurried back to their seats. The air was charged with the volatile combination of ego and talent he remembered from his stays at Lakeland.
His attention drifted as McCallum read the obligatory opening passages of Anna’s will. A woman behind him sighed deeply, whether from boredom or sorrow he didn’t know. Next to him, Meg glowered and shot the woman a sharp look over her left shoulder. His opinion of her went up another notch.
] There was an interminable passage dealing with her financial holdings, which were divided into real estate, stocks, bonds, and two chains of computer stores that were household words.
“Did you know anything about this?” Meg whispered to him.
Joe leaned in close. “No, did you?”
She shook her head and her gaze traveled the room. “Nobody else looks surprised,” she said as McCallum stopped to take a sip of water from the crystal tumbler on the desk.
She was right. The rest of the crowd was either better informed than they were or a hell of a lot better at dissembling.
The list of bequests was as endless as it was detailed. Most of the recipients were smiling into their Kleenex, crying tears of new-tax-bracket joy.
Finally, the distribution of stocks and bonds drew to a close as McCallum read, “’I now want to deal with the subject dearest to me: the future of the Kennedy Creative Colony.’”
A low buzz of excitement rippled through the library and next to him Meg shuddered, despite the warmth emanating from the crackling fireplace a few feet away from where they sat.
He reached over and took her hand in his.
“That’s okay,” she whispered. “I’m fine.”
“I’m not,” he said and she laughed softly. “Right now I’m scared shitless.”
#
Years later Meg would point to that statement as the moment he won her heart. She could feel a tremor running through him that matched the one snaking its way inside her and once again she realized how glad she was that she wasn’t alone.
Not that they were together. Far from it. They were total strangers thrown together under the saddest of circumstances.
McCallum read on. With each new bequest, conversation in the room escalated until Meg couldn’
t her herself think. Prints and sculptures, serigraphs and rare books, all found their way to the perfect owners. Anna had noted each one’s pet passion and matched gift and recipient with uncanny understanding. Her own sense of unease heightened.
Finally, McCallum reached the end. “’Signed and dated August twenty-second, and witnessed by Katie Connelly and James Benino.’” He took another sip of water and cleared his throat. There was a collective rustle from the crowd as they stood and prepared to leave the room to celebrate their bounty. Patrick McCallum, however, stepped from around the desk and raised a hand to stop the exodus.
“We have one last bequest,” he said in what sounded like his courtroom voice.
Joe drew his free hand through his hair. “What could be left?” he asked wryly as McCallum withdrew a large cream-colored envelope from the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
“Lakeland House,” she whispered, suddenly aware that she and Joe were the only people in the room who had yet to figure in the reading of the will.
Joe frowned. “I thought that was taken care of in a trust.”
Patrick cleared his throat. His blue eyes twinkled with amusement. Meg swallowed hard as he took a filigreed silver letter opener from the top of his desk and slit open the envelope. He slowly unfolded the letter inside as her palms began to sweat.
An unnatural hush fell over the room like heavy fog.
“I’ll spare you all the legal language,” he said, his gaze landing on Meg and Joe and staying there. “The phrasing of a trust would tangle the tongue of a linguist. What it amounts to is, Lakeland House was left in trust to Joseph Alessio and Margarita Lindstrom.”
He smiled at Meg and Joe.
Neither one moved.
“Don’t you young people understand?” he asked with a hearty laugh as he spread his arms wide. “This is all yours!”
Chapter Three
The room exploded with excitement. Strangers congratulated Meg and Joe as if they’d won the state lottery and by the time McCallum closed the double doors on the last of the merry mourners, both of them felt drained.
“Questions?” McCallum asked, his lined face crinkled with a broad smile.
“A thousand,” Meg said. “I don’t know anything about running a foundation. I can hardly balance my checkbook.”
Joe nodded his head. “What would make Anna think either one of us has the slightest understanding how to run something like the Colony? Most writers make lousy business people.”
“You don’t need to know anything.” McCallum reached for the letter again. “Anna worked everything out. A few months before her death, the Colony transitioned into being part of a larger foundation.”
“He’s speaking English,” Meg said to Joe, “but I don’t understand a word.”
Joe gave a rueful grin. “Preaching to the choir, sister.”
“Don’t worry,” McCallum said. “KCC will still go with the six-month work-interval formula, open only between April and October. The whole enterprise, however would be underwritten and thus able to expand its scope. The two of you jointly own both the buildings and the land Lakeland House rests on. Anna would like you both to oversee the selection of artists who will benefit from the grant structure,” he continued. “But most importantly, this is also your home. If the foundation should cease to exist, this property and all buildings on it remain under your joint ownership.”
Meg’s head throbbed. “You still haven’t answered Joe’s question. What about the physical upkeep, taxes—“
“The parent foundation is responsible. Things are truly all taken care of, dear people. Anna thought of everything.” He paused and Meg’s heart lurched. “But there is one more thing. Were you aware that Anna had been working on an annotated history of the Colony?”
They both nodded.
Patrick explained how Anna had set the end of the year as the target date for completion. “Meridian is very interested in publishing it, and God knows, the publicity would do us proud. And that, of course, brings me to the last request.” He fished another cream-colored envelope from his breast pocket and handed it to Meg.
She unfolded the heavy vellum notepaper. The letter was dated just two days before Anna’s death. Her back-slanted handwriting was unmistakable. The descending loops of her G’s and Y’s extended halfway into the line below; the crossbar of her T’s flew exuberantly across the page. It proved her indomitable spirit had been with her until the last, and a peaceful warmth settled itself around Meg’s shoulders like a hug.
She read aloud: “’My time is almost here, Margarita and Joseph, and you must believe I embrace it as the start of yet another adventure. My only regret is that my history of Lakeland House is not quite completed. I ask your help in doing this, for only you two have understood fully what my life’s work has been about.
“’Others came to visit, but you came to stay. I know you will understand the importance of it all and will open yourselves up to the full meaning of what I’m asking of you both.
“’You two are the children of my heart—you always were and you will remain so.’”
Meg looked up at Joe, whose eyes had never left her face. “It’s signed ‘Annie.’”
McCallum had been quietly watching them from where he stood, leaning against the edge of the desk.
Joe closed his eyes for a split second, and a low sigh escaped his lips. “There’s nothing more to say. Anna’s wishes are my top priority.”
“Same here.” Meg turned to the lawyer. “How much work is involved in finishing the project?”
McCallum, arms crossed over his chest, nodded. “A month, give or take a week.”
Meg tried to ignore the ripple of excitement inside her chest.
Next to her, Joe lit another cigarette. “Can you take that much time away from your limousine?” The words sounded innocent enough, but she detected a note of wry curiosity beneath the surface.
“My limo, my decision.” She watched as he took another drag on his cigarette, then stubbed it out in a crystal ashtray on the windowsill. “Can you take time away from your word processor?”
“My word processor, my decision,” he mirrored back to her. “Besides, I use a typewriter.”
They both turned toward McCallum who was adding a generous splash of scotch to his tumbler of water.
“We’ll do it,” Meg said.
“Anything for Anna,” Joe chimed in.
McCallum put down his tumbler and came around to the front of his desk. “I knew you would both feel this way,” he said as he draped an arm around each of them, “but I want you to be sure.”
“We’re sure.” Joe sounded disgruntled. “We both loved Anna. This is what she wanted us to do.”
“It's not that I doubt your intentions, Joseph,” the lawyer said, “but I wonder about the working relationship.” At the puzzled expressions on their faces, he continued, “You’ll be working closely together on this. Do you think you’ll be able to work toward one goal, with one point of view?”
“Of course we will.” Meg was unable to keep the edge from her voice. “We’re in this as partners, not rivals.”
“Excuse me if I step on anyone’s toes,” McCallum said, “but Anna implied you were both rather, shall we say, volatile individuals.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Joe exploded but least he had the good humor to laugh when McCallum pointed a finger at him. “I think Meg and I can keep our perspectives straight.”
McCallum started walking them over to the door to the library. “Take a walk. Have some lunch. Talk about it. You’ll be connected through Lakeland House for a long time to come. Make sure your relationship gets off on the right foot. You can come back here later and we’ll draw up a simple working agreement.”
#
The chill October air was a welcome relief after the overheated, overperfumed, overanxious atmosphere inside the house. Joe waited while Meg buttoned up her coat and adjusted the collar, then they set off across the cobbled driveway toward her lim
o.
“You’re too slow, Lindstrom,” he said, enjoying the flash of leg as her coat opened with every stride.
She caught up with him and gave him one of those sidelong glances he’d noticed in the library that made her thick lashes cast shadows on her cheeks. “I’d like to see how fast you’d walk in four-inch heels.”
“I write under a female pseudonym but that doesn't mean I dress the part."
“You write under a woman’s name?”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” he said, a bit defensively. “It’s common in my current field.”
“Which is?” Those dark eyes of hers were intent upon him. The woman never blinked.
“Family sagas,” he said. “Those big, sprawling multi-generational novels that miniseries are made of.”
Those mysterious dark eyes of hers lit up with interest. “You mean those fat, wonderful books filled with hot covers, big families, and better sex than most normal human beings will ever find in this lifetime?”
“Guilty.”
She laughed and linked her arm her arm through his in a companionable gesture that surprised him. She carried herself with a almost-palpable shell of reserve which made this simple action carry more weight than it should.
They started walking again but this time he took pains to match his pace to hers.
“In high school I believed everything I read.” She laughed again. “And I mean everything. Do you realize how much influence writers like you have over impressionable minds?”
“Must have made the real thing a bit of a letdown,” Joe said, thinking about the earth-shattering, mind-boggling, transcendental pleasures that abounded in most popular novels. He flashed his most wicked grin as they neared her limo. “Was it?”
“I’ll never tell.” That full, incredibly sexy mouth of hers tilted on one side with a secret smile. “Let’s just say I knew more and did less with it than anyone at Mater Christi High School.”
“Seems like a waste of a good education to me.” He stopped in front of the Caddy and leaned against the front right fender. “I guess now you’ve managed to put it to good use."
The Edge of Forever Page 2