by Ann Yost
“Harmony Lime,” she reminded him. “My dear, you must come see my newest passion.”
He listened to the rain beating a crazy tattoo against the sides of the sturdy mansion and fought a sense of helplessness. He had no business worrying about Daisy Budd. The woman was old enough to take care of herself. Besides, tonight was a perfect opportunity to find the treasure. Reluctantly he followed his stepmother down the corridor and into a room he vaguely remembered as a sun porch but which was now, apparently, an arboretum. Rows of clay pots filled with plants basked in artificial light and an earthy scent filled the air.
“You’ve become a gardener?”
“Oh, no. I’ve hired someone to tend the plants. My interest is mixology. The potions and brews in my Book of Shadows require special herbs so I grow them here. I’ve got a wicked love potion. Would you like to try it?”
Nick stared at Judith’s still-beautiful face. She was a kook and totally self absorbed but, to her credit, she’d never treated him any differently than her own son.
“I suppose,” she said, with a little sigh, “you think I’m a flake but I’m not really. I just have a short attention span.”
The unexpected humor was his undoing.
“I think you’re beautiful and adventurous.” He realized he meant the compliment.
She flashed a brilliant smile. “Life’s a journey, Nick, dear. If we stop seeking, we stop evolving.” She waved her be-ringed hands. “Your journey has come full circle. It was time for you to come home.”
His warm feelings evaporated. Judith must have heard why he’d left at some time or other but perhaps, like so many things, it had flitted in and out of her brain. He glanced at his watch.
“Is there something I can do for you?”
Her face sobered.
“There’s something you can do for all of us. The family needs you, Nick. Buzzy’s in over his head. You have to stay.”
“It’s out of the question, Judith. I’m sorry.”
“Theo raised you as his own grandson,” she reminded him.
Sure he had. Right up until he’d cut Nick off at the knees. “I have my own life. My own career.”
She shook her head and her long hair swayed. “Your life is here. I’ve read it in the stars. Besides, you still own a third of the company. And besides,” she went on, ignoring his lack of response, “this weekend I’ll introduce you to the high priestess and Grand Dragon of my coven. They are to be handfasted at the mortuary.”
“Wedding boutique,” he corrected her. Then he clamped his jaw shut, appalled. Why on earth did he care what people called Daisy’s establishment?
“Of course. Happily Ever After. Such a fanciful name.”
He thought about her latest fruit-inspired identity. The woman knew fanciful.
“I have to go.”
“You know, Nicky,” Harmony Lime said. “You are conflicted about something. Your aura is becoming muddy.”
He flashed her a sardonic smile.
“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.”
****
The Jeep rocked and slid as rain crashed into it but Daisy didn’t slow her pace. She hoped Larry wasn’t too frightened. If only she’d brought him to town with her. They could have stayed in Caro’s cozy house. The only safe place in the cabin was the windowless bathroom.
The power was out when she got to the cabin. No surprise there. Daisy used a flashlight to locate Larry under her bed then she coaxed him out with a bowl of tuna fish onto which she’d crumbled an Oreo cookie. After she toweled off and changed her soaked clothing she settled down to read by flashlight.
Several hours later she awoke when she turned on her side to get more comfortable and felt something cold and hard beneath her cheek. Porcelain?
Ah, yes. The howl of the wind against the cabin’s corners and the clatter of rain on the tin roof reminded her she’d chosen to spend the night in the bathtub. She shifted and grimaced as her bones protested. In spite of the nested blankets the tub was unforgiving. Still half-asleep, she expected only darkness when she opened her eyes but a single candle flame danced on top of the vanity. It revealed a dark form perched on the closed toilet set. A human form. The hair lifted on Daisy’s neck even as she recognized his uniquely masculine scent.
“Nick?”
“Right here.”
“Here?” She struggled to sit up. “You’re in the bathroom with me?”
“Safest place in a storm. But you already knew that.” She squinted at him and noticed an odd bulkiness around his neck.
She sat up with a groan. “Is that Larry?”
“Yeah.”
She blinked the sleep out of her eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“I was busy today. No time to find another bed. I figured you were too kind to throw me out in the storm.”
She eyed him a moment.
“I think you came out here to see me.”
He shrugged and the cat’s relaxed body moved up and down. “Maybe I came to see Larry.”
She knew she should question him, make him reveal his agenda but she couldn’t make herself do it. She was glad to have company in the storm. And, recklessly, she was glad that company was Nick Bowman.
“C’mon out of the tub,” he urged. “The storm has eased up. You’re safe now.” He reached out to help her up and the contact made her blood race. Her face felt hot and she was grateful for the dark. Suddenly her absent defenses kicked in.
“I don’t want you hanging around the Gray Lady,” she said, stiffly, “or around here.”
Considering that she had not withdrawn her hand from his, the words sounded childish and ridiculous.
“You want me to leave?”
No. No. Never.
“You can stay here tonight,” She said, ungraciously.
“Thanks.”
Daisy pulled away from him and stalked out into the cabin. She needed some distance from his overwhelming masculinity. She found the Daisy blanket and threw it at him. “You can have the sofa, again.”
He looked at her. “I thought we might use this time to talk.”
She didn’t want to talk. She wanted to slide her fingers up under his T-shirt. She wanted to feel the hard muscles there and in his shoulders. She wanted to press her restless body against him.
“About what?” She knew she sounded irritable.
He used the lightning reflexes that had made him such a great Formula One driver to haul her into his arms.
“The English Patient.”
Her skin felt like a straightjacket. In contrast, her core melted. She couldn’t seem to think.
“You know, the film that featured sex in a bathtub.”
Sex. She fought an almost overwhelming desire to press herself against him. She had to remember he was the enemy.
“I have a better idea. Let’s talk about what you want from me.”
It was a perfect opening for a move, almost a proposition itself. She wondered if it had come from her subconscious. She wanted him. Despite his past cruelty to her sister and the present threat to her property, she wanted him. She’d always wanted Nick Bowman. She felt his stillness in the dark but he did not come closer and the back of her throat ached. He was going to let the moment pass. He did not want her.
“Why don’t you have a seat on the sofa. I’ll get us a drink.”
By the time they occupied opposite ends of the sofa the wind had died down. The rain against the tin roof sounded like a slot machine paying off. Nick let out a sigh that grabbed at Daisy’s heart.
“Tell me what you’re really doing in Mayville,” she said, in a low voice. “Tell me what you want from me.”
She couldn’t see the bleak expression in his gray eyes but she knew it was there as he turned to look into the empty stone fireplace. The single candle flame cast shadows on the hard planes of his face and highlighted his long, dark, lashes.
“All right. Long version or short one?”
She shrugged. “I’ve got all night.”<
br />
He didn’t speak for a moment as if he needed the time to collect his thoughts.
“I always expected to take over Bowman’s Biscuits,” he said, finally. “I was told, and believed, I’d be Theo’s successor in the dynasty.”
Daisy nodded. Everyone in Mayville understood the old man’s wish to keep the prosperous baking mix company in the family and of Nick’s intended part in that plan. When Nick overturned the applecart seven years earlier he left the town in a state of shock.
“At Theo’s urging, I earned an MBA and Buzz studied marketing. We expected to run the company together. That last summer we resumed our childhood friendship. We fished and talked and, well, sewed some wild oats.
That last summer. The summer of Caro’s broken heart. Daisy leaned forward and braced herself for the story.
“One night we brought some girls out to the cabin, drank too much, and didn’t return to town. Theo was furious. He’d always insisted that we not give the town any reason to gossip about us. He hauled us into his office the next morning and we went, hung over and ready to defend ourselves but we didn’t get a lecture about moral standards.”
Nick paused and Daisy waited while a feeling of trepidation worked its way up her spine. She resisted the urge to touch the arm flung over the back of the sofa.
“It didn’t exactly go as anticipated. Pops lost his temper. Called me too immature to run a hundred-million-dollar company. Told me to go race cars for awhile. I fought him. Reminded him of the years of walking the straight and narrow compared with one night in the cabin with a couple of random girls.”
Random girls. Is that how he thought of Caro? Her heart hurt for her sister.
“I told Pops, in my most condescending voice, that as the oldest grandson, I was ready for my role in the company. I told him,” Nick’s voice cracked, “that he was too old to run it.”
All thoughts of Caro left her head. She heard the self-condemnation in his voice but she heard something else, too. Pain. She found she couldn’t wait any longer.
“What did he say?”
Nick’s voice was flat.
“He told me it was a lie.”
“What? What was a lie?” She realized she was holding her breath.
“He told me I was not the oldest grandson. I was a step-grandson. It turns out his son, Hamilton, married my mother when I was eighteen months old. Buzz is my half-brother. There is no Bowman blood in my veins. Not a drop.”
Daisy’s heart curled into a fetal position. In her world, family relationships meant everything and she couldn’t imagine how much Theo’s words had hurt. She reached out to touch Nick’s cheek and realized she’d moved the length of the sofa. He stiffened and she dropped her hand. Nick didn’t want sympathy. Not from her. She refused to be offended. This wasn’t about her.
“So you left. And you stayed away.”
“Turned out the old man did me a favor.”
“You mean because you were free to pursue a dream?”
“Family slows you down. Hell, it turns you into molasses. Somebody always needs something. You should know better than anybody. Your sister tells me you came home to take care of her.”
Daisy’s jaw dropped. “I wanted to come back to Mayville. I love my sisters.”
He stared at her. “And your career? She said you always wanted to be a journalist. Like your dad.”
“Dreams change.”
“Not that much. From reporter to wedding planner is quite a leap.”
She shrugged. “I like business and I like family. Happily Ever After allows me to combine the two. Caro’s a wonderful dress designer. When the Gray Lady became available it seemed like fate.”
His gray eyes were unreadable.
“What’s the real reason you started the business? Your sisters are grown.”
Under other circumstances she might not have told him. But he had just confided a dark, painful secret and in the small hours of the night, with the rain tap-dancing overhead, it seemed as if they were the only two people in the world. She sat back and prepared to share her story.
Chapter Eight
“After high school, Junie enrolled in a cosmetology school in Detroit. She went to a bar one night and met a man who swept her off her feet. They eloped a few days later.”
Nick stared at her, intently.
“Turned out the guy was part of some Vegas crime operation. She figured out her mistake pretty fast but he wouldn’t let her go. Neither would the mob. They figured she’d seen too much. She and I talked by phone and devised a plan to use me as a decoy while she sneaked out of the hotel and took a cab to the airport. A few days later she got a call from police. Her husband died in a suspected mob hit. If she’d still been with him, they’d have gotten her, too.”
“Jesus.”
“At almost the same time Caro was divorcing Quentin and she needed a job. The timing was right to come back home. I’m not sorry.”
He looked at her for a long minute. “Have you always tried to protect your sisters from their mistakes?”
“No, of course not. It’s just, well, family sticks together.”
“Have either of them tried to rescue you?”
She smiled at him. He really didn’t understand. “They rescue me every day. Without them I’d be alone in the world.”
“Not necessarily. You could have a family of your own, a husband, kids.”
Daisy shook her head. Talk about marriage would lead to talk about love and that was too darn close to her feelings about him. She realized they’d strayed from the topic. “I understand why you left but I’m still puzzled about why you returned.”
He looked away from her.
“I got a posthumous letter from Pops. He’d instructed a Detroit attorney to send it after his death. He asked me to come back to Mayville long enough to take care of a loose end.”
Daisy could only imagine how it would feel to get a request from the grave.
Nick’s eyes narrowed on her.
“Don’t give me that sympathetic look. This is just business. It turns out that years ago when Pops and his wife lived in the Gray Lady he hid something in the cellar. Later he moved into Bowman Mansion and Randolph turned the house into a mortuary. In the letter, Pops asked me to find the item, which had been stolen, and to do my best to return it to the rightful owner.”
Daisy’s mind locked on the salient fact.
“There’s something stolen in the Gray Lady?”
Nick shrugged. “It’s a perfect hiding place. What’s more off-putting than the dark, gloomy cellar of a funeral home?”
He had a point. Unfortunately.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know exactly. He and Randolph brought it back from Germany.” Nick’s pause created an unintentional dramatic effect. “He said it was ‘Nazi loot.’”
“Oh my God.”
Nick’s breath seeped out in a long sigh.
“Something called a blue diamond.’ I don’t know whether it’s a painting or sculpture or if it really is a gem. I just know it’s priceless and, apparently, radioactive.” His eyes narrowed. “And I know one other thing. Someone else is after it.”
She stared at him as the pieces clicked into place. Was this the reason for the anonymous letters? Daisy told herself she’d think about that later. At the moment, the only thing that mattered was Nick. “You’re on a quest,” she said.
“What?”
“Your grandfather set up a quest for you. You know, like King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. He challenged you to protect the family’s name in spite of all that’s happened. He offered you a challenge, Nick, and you accepted it. He wanted you back in the family.”
“Bullshit. He sent for me to clean up a mess so Buzz wouldn’t get egg on his face.”
Daisy shook her head. “You know that’s not true. He trusted you, Nick. It’s a peace offering. He wanted to apologize for hurting you years ago.”
“D’you see everything through rose-colored
glasses? No apology was necessary. I’m not his grandson. And Theo could’ve found me any time during the past seven years. Why wait until he’s dead?”
“I guess that’s something you’ll want to find out.”
He cursed again.
“They need you, you know. Word is the company’s lost customers since Buzz took over.”
Nick’s face darkened.
“Not my problem.”
She studied him.
“I wonder.”
He jumped to his feet. “Unlike you, I don’t feel it’s necessary to meddle in everyone else’s business. Live and let live. The bottom can fall out of Bowman’s Biscuits for all I care. I’m not sticking around.”
She didn’t argue with him. She wondered if Theo Bowman had been right to rake up all the old, hurt feelings. She put her palm on top of his closed fist. A moment later he shocked her by turning his hand upside down and closing his fingers around hers.
“Want to comfort me, Sunshine?”
She should pull her hand away. His touch sent gerbils racing through her stomach and his scent filled her head. It’s just chemistry. But it felt like so much more. It always had with Nick. Even during the years before they’d spoken. She gave him a reckless grin and the words tumbled out.
“You asking me to go to bed with you?”
He tightened his grip and did not smile. “No. I want you to give me access to the Gray Lady’s cellar.”
Of course. He’d come out here tonight to soften her up not to seduce her. She’d let her fantasies take over again. What a fool. With an effort she pulled herself together.
“You really don’t want the house, do you?”
“Just access.”
She nodded. At least she could give him what he needed. Daisy knew this would be the last time they’d talk in such an intimate manner. She still wanted to know what had happened seven years ago and this was the moment to find out.
“Nick, about my sister. You never meant to hurt her, did you?”
He frowned. “I told you I wouldn’t hurt Junie.”
Too late Daisy realized she should have kept her mouth shut. Caro would not appreciate a revelation of those long ago feelings to someone who could barely remember her.