Stay (Dunham series #2)
Page 4
He pointed his age-gnarled finger at Eric. “Don’t push me or you’re going to find out what it’s like to have your political career go up in smoke before you really catch fire.” He looked at Justice’s desk, which was as clean as it had been when she left for maternity leave four months before. Adam and Lesley hadn’t come in yet, but it was early. “I’m really gonna miss that crafty bastard,” Wilson muttered, a catch in his voice, as he left.
Eric turned and opened the door to the office that Knox had occupied for fourteen years after he’d deposed his predecessor at gunpoint. Now it belonged to Eric. It seemed so . . . lifeless . . . without Knox’s overpowering personality, but it was his now. He would turn it upside down and pull it inside out, starting today at ten o’clock.
He had a nasty past that had caught up to him and a brilliant future within his grasp.
He meant to meet them both head-on.
* * * * *
6: Too Big to Cry
The only television Vanessa “Granny” Whittaker had ever bought for her inn hung in the kitchen for the staff. She had no time for pleasure viewing and she got her news from the internet, but her chief financial officer had had a TV installed in his suite the day before. He’d already read everything in the Whittaker House library, and his own library had gone up in flames last month.
His doctors had restricted him from most of the inn’s chores, his love-struck nurses all made sure he complied, his unsympathetic physical therapist controlled nearly every move he made, and he’d sent his wife home because she ran roughshod over his medical team. Since he couldn’t carry anything as heavy as a baby, the wife had taken their daughter with her; since he wasn’t allowed to drive, he couldn’t go anywhere because no one at Whittaker House had the time or inclination to take him.
In the five days since he’d moved into Whittaker House, he’d caught up on all the accounting, sent all the quarterly reports to their corporate partner, compiled the financial data they needed to embark on Whittaker House’s next expansion, sent the paperwork to the county for zoning permissions, and filed and paid their taxes. Daily bookkeeping only took an hour if he was caught up, so he had to wait until tomorrow to do anything further.
One possibility for his entertainment, the Mormon missionaries who lived in one of Whittaker House’s cottages, were always busy. At the moment, they were doing their laundry and wouldn’t have time to talk to him until after lunch, if even then. The rest of their week was booked solid, which left them no time to indulge him in the deep theological discourse he enjoyed.
Ol’ Curtis Lowe wanted no truck with him; in Curtis’s opinion, any man who refused to fish and hunt was completely immoral.
Two of Whittaker House’s permanent residents had their own routines, which did not include him, and the third one, his chess partner, was in a meeting.
The production crew for Vanessa’s cooking show, Vittles: Gourmet Weeds and Roadkill, wouldn’t arrive until Saturday, which meant he had to wait almost a week for something different to occupy his mind and time.
So he was bored.
Vanessa didn’t think there existed anything more dangerous to her peace of mind than a wounded and bored, spouseless and childless, inn-bound Knox Hilliard roaming around Whittaker House with nothing to do and no one to talk to.
She’d warned him against fiddling with the food; normally, he wouldn’t dare, but today . . . Alain, Whittaker House’s executive chef, had already blown up at him once for being in the way and a second time for daring to suggest that a delicate gooseberry curd needed pepper.
And it was only ten o’clock in the morning.
“Sister Whittaker?”
She looked up from a half-butchered animal to see the pair of elders clad only in jeans and sweatshirts shivering in the doorway of her butcher shop. Knox thought it funny to request that the missionaries address her in that manner and, being simpatico with Knox, they obliged.
Obnoxious bastard.
“What’s he done this time?”
“Alain said to tell you to get him out of the kitchen before he goes on strike.”
“Oh, shit,” she breathed. She dropped her knife, ripped off her paper coverall and surgical gloves, and ran to the mansion to keep her normally even-tempered chef from leaving for the day or, worse, quitting altogether. She burst through the back door into the kitchen, but stopped when she noticed the stillness amongst the skeleton kitchen staff, who had all stopped to watch television. Knox leaned against a stainless steel table, his attention as riveted as everyone else’s.
She looked up at the screen, then stiffened when she saw a face she hadn’t seen in thirteen years, and could have gone the rest of her life without seeing—the face of the man she’d spent the last several months thinking about.
Couldn’t stop thinking about.
Wrapped up in a fine black wool coat, he stood on the top step of the Chouteau County courthouse while snow fell around him, onto his broad shoulders and into his short black hair. Mr. Connelly and Mr. Davidson, looking much older and grayer than she remembered, flanked him, and two very young attorneys stood off to the side. None of the prosecutors held any papers or hid behind a pedestal of any sort.
He had a narrow, closely trimmed line of black facial hair along the sharp edges of his jaw and chin from sideburn to sideburn. His dark expression was tinged with the slight arrogance of success and power. Her breath caught in her throat at the changes time had wrought in his features, the changes that made him more beautiful than she remembered, than she could have imagined.
*
“Yes, Mr. Shinkle?”
“Mr. Cipriani, since you started your political blogging alongside Justice McKinley Hilliard, you’ve gathered quite a following of self-proclaimed libertarians. Do you see yourself as the man capable of making the Libertarian party a threat to the Republican party?”
“Capable of it? Yes. Do I want to? I don’t know yet. I’m meeting with Republican leaders at their invitation so I can find out if they can change enough to rebuild its base—the conservative right and libertarians—or even if they want to. But I’m not sure that the conservative right will abandon Republicans for the Libertarian party once they understand the sheer diversity of libertarian thought. A lot of people who live their lives by libertarian philosophy don’t like parts or all of the Libertarian party platform.”
“So you would be open to an alliance with the Republican party?”
“I’m open to it, but don’t count your chickens.”
“Would you classify your viewpoints as socially liberal and fiscally conservative then?”
“I classify them as common sense.”
“Then—”
“Glenn, give somebody else a chance to ask a question. You can read my blog or walk into my office and talk to me any time you want, which you do anyway. Yes?”
“Mr. Cipriani, two questions. You came to blog popularity on Ms. McKinley’s coattails. First, did you hire her specifically to help further your own political ambitions and second, does she influence your viewpoints?”
“First, I wasn’t going to hire her at all. Knox did. Even if I had hired her, it wouldn’t have been for her influence, but it sure as hell doesn’t hurt to have her on my side. Second, my opinions were formed well before I began reading her work, before I ever met her, before she began working for me. When she figured out what my opinions were, then she started nagging me to blog.”
“You’ve opened your criminal record to the public with almost nothing redacted. Why?”
“At this point in my career and with where I want to go, I can’t afford not to. I’m ushering in a new era in this office, which begins with total transparency. I’m able and willing to put my cards on the table for you and the voters to see that my juvenile criminal record isn’t indicative of my career in this office, nor is it harmful to the office. My conviction rate is eighty-two percent. For the last six and a half years, I’ve managed the office itself as well as having a half-time trial
schedule. For the last month, I’ve been acting prosecutor while Knox recovered from his gunshot wounds. If people believe in me and want to vote for me, the least I can do is respect them by telling them everything there is to know about me.
“The press kit we’ve prepared contains my CV, full disclosure of my personal and business finances along with tax returns, and my connection to everybody of import in the metro. Dirk Jelarde, one of the county’s public defenders, is my business partner; his CV and financial records are also included. You’re free to compare and contrast my criminal history with my academic performance, and my service to Chouteau County and the state of Missouri to date. Copies of the transcript of my trial up to and including the dismissal are available for purchase in the clerk’s office.”
“So you’re not willing to be that transparent.”
“I’m not using taxpayer money to do it, no. If you want it, you pay for copying.”
“And Simone Whittaker is still part of your life?”
“She will always be part of my life and I am grateful to her every day for what she did for me.”
*
Vanessa clapped both her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide, feeling as if her chest had been kicked in, unable to breathe. She sprinted across the kitchen and up the stairs to her office. She knew Knox watched her go, but he wouldn’t follow. She dropped in her plush office chair and whirled to stare blankly out the fourteen-foot floor-to-ceiling diamond-mullioned Palladian windows, a knot so deep in her soul she didn’t know how to untangle it.
“What about what I did for you, Eric?” she whispered. “Simone took your life away from you, but I gave it back.”
But really, Vanessa knew she should have no need for Eric Cipriani to be grateful to her for what she had done; she lived in her reward:
Acres and acres of rolling hills currently covered in brownish lawn and stripped trees that would grow emerald and lush come spring,
A large lake with a manicured island and lacy white gazebo in the middle of it connected to the shore by an arched concrete gothic revival bridge,
A collection of little gothic revival brick cottages arranged in an artfully scattered pattern and connected by cobblestone walking paths interspersed with random flower beds,
A carefully camouflaged playground and swimming pool toward the southwest edge of the property, and
Decorative placement of peach, apple, and cherry trees, and more strategically arranged flower beds.
Though she couldn’t see it from the office, across the highway lay the construction site for another collection of gothic revival buildings: shops for the selling of local handcrafted goods and food, hunting and fishing gear, and other high-end goods and services, including a spa.
In Vanessa’s office hung a bona fide Dalí. On another wall hung Whittaker House itself in oils-on-canvas, painted by the architect who’d built it and had risen to prominence in her field by doing so. Downstairs in the grand parlor hung another valuable painting done by superstar artist Ford, whose day gig consisted of raiding corporations. Owning those paintings gave her a great deal of cachet and somewhat of a nest egg should she need to sell.
I am grateful to her every day for what she did for me.
So Vanessa should also be grateful for what her sister had done, but she couldn’t muster it at the moment.
“Vanessa?”
She sighed at the soft female voice from the threshold behind her. “I should’ve locked the door,” Vanessa muttered.
“I’m sorry. Um, Knox said . . . ”
Oh, how Vanessa hoped Knox didn’t know or suspect. She’d taken his inability to read body language for granted so long that it surprised her when she caught flashes of insight in his expression. “I didn’t know you were coming back.”
Vanessa heard the footsteps, the snick of the door closing, the poof of the leather sofa as Justice settled in, and the snuffs of an infant warm and safe in her mother’s arms.
“He never thanked me,” Vanessa whispered, hoping Justice couldn’t hear her, but she couldn’t not say it aloud. Her eyes blurred with moisture and her nose stung. “He’ll publicly thank Simone, but what about me?”
“He can’t,” Justice said carefully. “You were a minor and you testified in a closed courtroom for a reason. Your name and all identifying information were redacted from the transcripts to keep you safe.”
Indeed. Simone’s diary had destroyed many men’s lives that day—except for the only life Simone and LaVon had intended to destroy. With only one simple goal in Vanessa’s twelve-year-old mind, it had never occurred to her what could happen to her, and without Knox to protect her both legally and physically, she may not have lived this long.
But that didn’t make her feel any better. Eric could have referred to her anonymously.
“Is there something you haven’t told me?” Justice asked after a moment. “About Eric and you, I mean?”
Only the one pertinent detail she didn’t want anyone to know, which Knox would probably be able to deduce from her shocked reaction and melodramatic exit.
Vanessa drew a deep breath. “Does he remember me?”
Another pause. “I don’t see how he couldn’t. He has to deal with your mother and your sister nearly every day.”
Vanessa thought about that a minute, unable to discern what that might mean. “You know,” she said after clearing her throat, forcing herself to sound halfway normal. “Until you started planning your wedding last year, I hadn’t thought about him in years.”
That was the absolute truth; she only wished it could have remained so.
“I’m sorry.”
“I mean, I should have at least gone to see Knox in the hospital. It’s not every day your dad dies and then wakes up right before his autopsy.”
“So . . . your real reason for not coming to the wedding was so you wouldn’t have to see Eric.”
It sounded so damned stupid—and selfish—when someone else said it aloud, but . . .
“No. I couldn’t possibly have come,” she murmured. “It was just another reason to say no. I’m sorry.”
Justice sighed. “Oh, Vanessa, don’t. You have no idea how much Knox depends on you, Whittaker House, to be here, solid. No drama. He needs to know there’s one thing in his life that’s always status quo. You being here running Whittaker House, not at the hospital hovering and crying— It gave him a sense of security, like there was one normal thing in his life he could count on.”
Vanessa looked around her chair at Justice then. “Are you serious?”
“Vanessa!” she said with an irritated scowl. “I wouldn’t lie about something like that just to make you feel better. If I thought you were being a bitch about it, I’d tell you.”
She would, too.
“I already suspected,” Justice grumbled. “I wasn’t sure why or how deep it ran. He’s never said anything about you. You’ve never said anything about him. Simone and LaVon don’t even mention your name because they’re so terrified of Knox.”
LaVon, you or Simone open your mouths, I got a bullet with your name on it and already nineteen reasons to use it. Vanessa knows to come to me immediately for any reason.
“It’s like none of them know you, like it never happened, like you have no connection to Eric or to LaVon or Simone Whittaker. I’m not even sure any of them have ever seen Vittles or even know about it.”
Vanessa’s mouth tightened.
A brisk rap on the thick wooden door made Vanessa sigh again, even as it opened to admit the one man she didn’t want to see right now. “Good morning, Mister Thompson.”
“Mornin’, Vanessa. Justice.” Vanessa’s third permanent resident sauntered in with the languid grace of a man accustomed to prancing around on stage in front of thousands of screaming fans, then sat on her desk. “Did I interrupt somethin’?”
“You always interrupt something, Nash,” Vanessa returned dryly. “Go find somewhere else to stay.”
“See, this is why I like you. You’
re prickly.”
“Only to you.”
“An’ why is that?”
“I don’t like you. Never have.”
“If you hated me that much, you’d either rat me out to the tabloids or kick me out and you ain’t done either yet. Gives me hope I can weasel my way into your heart.”
“I don’t rat you out because I don’t want the paparazzi down here any more than you do. Which you know. I haven’t kicked you out yet because I charge you three times what I’d charge anyone else. And yet, you stay. More dollars than sense.”
“Aw, c’mon, Vanessa. Tons o’ women want my attention.”
“Prepubescent girls and old ladies, you mean.” And no wonder. Nash Piper—Mister John Thompson—was striking: black hair, hazel eyes, ruddy skin, and carved features mostly hidden by the full mustache and beard he wore in an effort to render himself unrecognizable. He had a sinfully seductive voice and an otherworldly talent on any stringed instrument ever made—particularly a banjo. “Go play chess with Knox. He’s as bored as you are.”
“Not in the mood for chess.”
Ah.
Nash looked over at Justice speculatively. “Ya know,” he said, “lately, I’ve been thinkin’ about both of you at the same time, all naked and on me. An’ each other.” He shivered. “The way I look at it is it’s y’all’s duty to arrange that for me, seein’ as how you’re all about givin’ the guests what they want.”
Justice began to laugh and Vanessa couldn’t help her reluctant chuckle. No matter how annoying Nash could be, his outrageous behavior did seem to cheer her up when she least expected it.
“C’mon, neither one of you can tell me you wouldn’t like to be able to say you had sex with Nash Piper. An’ Justice, I’m a helluva lot cuter than that old man you married for his money.”
“That ‘old man’ is forty. You’re thirty-seven. He gets me hot and bothered. You . . . don’t.”