“Wow!” Gemma said, her eyes wide. “A woman went down the San Juan River in 1799 and made paintings of the flora and fauna? What an extraordinary find!”
Colin laughed, but he was impressed with her memory and her knowledge. “You and Joce and Sara have to get to know one another.” He finished his sandwich while looking at her, and he could see that she was thinking about the paintings and how a woman may have made them. He wasn’t going to say so but he was very pleased that she’d not asked about the value of the paintings. The discovery of them had made international news and been reported by the BBC and in Paris. For a while the town had been inundated with tourists asking questions. With just a few exceptions, the only thing people had asked about was the money. How much were the paintings worth? Colin had grown so tired of the questions that he’d mumble, “Millions,” then leave and let his deputy, Roy, handle them.
But Gemma didn’t seem in the least interested in the financial side of the find—and he liked that very much.
She finished her sandwich. “And Sara is Ellie’s daughter? And your ‘favorite little man’ who helped her?”
“You’re going to be great at the research!” Colin said. “Yes, Sara is Ellie’s daughter, and Mr. Lang is the caretaker of Merlin’s Farm. He’s in his mid-eighties now and we look out for him. When Mike and Sara are here, he moves into a house they remodeled for him.” Colin wasn’t going to go into telling Gemma about Mr. Lang’s endless complaints about the tourists and having to live outside the old house, which he thought of as his.
Gemma wanted to ask what Ellie had meant about “club ladies” being after the old man, but she thought she’d asked enough questions.
She stood up. “Mind if I wander around the rest of the house and have a look?”
“Be my guest.” He was very pleased that she liked the place so much.
She went down the hall and peeked into the three bedrooms and two baths. The master suite opened into the garden. She unlocked the door and stepped outside. She didn’t know much about plants, but she’d put money on it that the trees weren’t the usual ones you could purchase at the local shop. No, this place looked like a miniature botanical garden, like a place a person would pay to see.
As Gemma thought of all she’d seen of the town, of this man, his family and now of his house, she couldn’t help a feeling of longing. Since her father had died, she hadn’t felt she was truly at home anywhere. To belong somewhere and to someone was Gemma’s deepest desire.
What would it be like to grow up in a town where people knew your name? she wondered. More than that, knew you as a person? In the grocery those people had known Colin well enough to drop a baby into his arms. Even the children knew that if Colin was handed a broken toy he would fix it. She heard his footsteps in the hallway.
“Are you okay?” he asked from behind her. “Nothing’s wrong, is it?”
He had noticed the sad look in her eyes, and she quickly changed it. “No. Just the opposite. I was admiring the view. Your garden looks larger than the usual backyard.”
“It’s a couple of acres.”
“Your cousin Luke couldn’t have done the garden too?”
“Yes he did. And he’s also Luke Adams.”
Gemma’s face looked blank.
“Luke Adams? Writes novels?” Colin asked.
“Sorry. I never read fiction. No time.”
He grinned. “That makes for a change. Usually when Luke’s pen name is mentioned, people nearly swoon.”
“Swoon, do they?” she asked, smiling. “I think you’ve been reading the documents your mother bought.”
“Actually, I did try to look at some of them. But then my phone would ring and I’d have to leave. Or sometimes I fell asleep. It’s difficult for me to imagine someone wanting a job like the one you want. On the days I have to stay in the office, I get antsy.” He pulled his buzzing cell phone out of his pocket and looked at it. “It’s a text from Mom and she says Jean is there. I think we better go.”
“Certainly!” Gemma said. “I can’t afford to offend your mother again.”
“I don’t think you ever have.”
“I wish I were as sure.” When she got to the kitchen door, she turned to look at him. “I’ve had a lovely time today. I enjoyed meeting the people and especially seeing your house. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said. “Want to drive back?”
“About as much as I want to jump onto the top of a speeding train.”
“Come on, then,” he said, “let’s go and see if Kirk has made off with my mother’s jewelry.”
“Or if Isla has eloped with your brother.”
“Shamus would never allow that.”
Laughing, they left the house together.
3
GEMMA STRETCHED OUT on the bed in Colin’s childhood room and looked around her. It was still the habitat of a teenage boy, but instead of posters of football players or other athletes, he’d hung pictures of men Gemma didn’t recognize. But she had an idea they were law enforcement agents, real ones, not actors who played them on TV. Considering what she was seeing, she wondered why he hadn’t become an FBI agent or joined the CIA. But then, she’d already seen the answer. He loved the little town of Edilean and the people in it.
After they’d left his newly purchased house, he’d driven them straight back to his family’s home. Hours earlier, when Gemma arrived, Mrs. Frazier had greeted her at the front door and immediately led her back to the guesthouse and shown her the documents. Gemma hadn’t been given time to get her suitcase out of the car, so she had no idea where she was staying in the big Frazier house.
Colin told her that he’d asked his mother to put her in his old room. “There’s an outside staircase, so you can come and go as you please,” he said. “And it’s on the third floor, so you’ll have privacy.”
“Your own private stairs? You sound like you were a very busy young man,” she said, teasing.
He didn’t seem to see her words as a joke. “I was called out so often in the middle of the night that when I was in the tenth grade, my father had the stairs put up so I wouldn’t wake the family.”
She didn’t understand what he meant. “You weren’t acting as sheriff when you were in high school, were you?”
“No, but I tend to volunteer for things. And, besides, I’ve always been . . .” He hesitated.
“As big as a bulldozer?”
“More or less,” he said, grinning. “When I was fourteen, I used to go out with the firefighters and hold the hose.”
“Isn’t that illegal for someone that young?”
“Yeah, but after I slipped out a window six times and ran into a burning building three times, everyone gave up trying to make me stay home. I think they gave me the hose to hold just to anchor me in place.”
“I guess that makes sense. So your family put you on the top floor and built a staircase just for you?”
“That they did.”
As they pulled into the driveway, he told her that Lanny had already carried her suitcase up and she could rest for a while. “Jean is cooking dinner tonight.”
“Is she a friend of yours?”
“Of our whole family. She’s a lawyer who works in Richmond and she likes to cook special meals.”
“I look forward to meeting her.”
Minutes later, he stopped at the bottom of a tall staircase that went up the entire side of the house. She could tell that he meant to escort her up, but she didn’t want him to. She liked him so much, was so very attracted to him, and she didn’t want to do anything embarrassing. Besides, it was better to keep a distance from the son of someone she hoped would employ her. “I can find my own way around,” she said.
“I’ll just show you—”
“No, really. I’d like some time to go over my notes.”
“All right,” he said, but he sounded disappointed. “Come down about six. We’ll have drinks, then dinner.”
“Sure,” she said as she started up the stai
rs, but he kept standing there. She realized he was waiting to see her safely up the stairs. Only when she got to the door did he turn and walk away.
Now, as Gemma lay on the bed and looked about the room, she thought about what she’d seen and heard that day. It had been a lot. First there were the untouched documents that had made her want to murder someone just to ensure that she got the job. Then Colin had come to the guesthouse and she’d been with him ever since.
How different his life had been from hers, she thought. He’d always lived in one place. He’d probably gone to elementary school with people who were his friends now. And then there were his many relatives.
As for Gemma, since she’d entered the university seven years before, her life had been transient. It wasn’t so because she moved, but at the school everyone around her had come and gone. Over the years, she’d had four close women friends. Each one had declared she was going for her Ph.D., but one by one, her friends had found men, married, then dropped out. Now all four of the women had children—and their correspondence had dwindled to an e-mail every three or four months.
As for the few men in Gemma’s life, they too had moved away. One of them had begged her to go with him. But she’d told him she was determined to stay where she was, that she had a plan for her life and wasn’t going to deviate from it. The truth was, she hadn’t been in love with him and didn’t want to go.
From the beginning, her goals had never changed. After she was awarded her doctorate, and after she had a job at a good school, she planned to start looking about for a permanent life, which meant a husband, a home, and a family of her own.
Married to a man like Colin, she thought. Her first impression of him was that he was a cross between the Incredible Hulk and one of those cowboys from a black-and-white TV show from the 1960s. Women were dumping babies on him one moment and asking for his protection in the next. If the women hadn’t been talking to him about serious matters, she would have thought he was the town babysitter—and ancient.
But he was far from old. He was young and good-looking and . . . her potential employer’s son, Gemma reminded herself.
She got off the bed and wandered about the room, looking at Colin’s possessions. There was a large trophy on the floor in the corner. OFFENSIVE LINEBACKER, CENTER it read. On the closet door were stapled some ribbons for other sports: swimming, hockey, even one for show jumping a horse.
Must have been a Frisian, she thought as she envisioned the medieval knights riding into battle on their huge, heavy horses. The historian in her knew that Colin would look good in armor.
On top of his chest of drawers was an open box, the kind that expensive jewelry came in. Inside, instead of something intrinsically valuable, was a cheap little metal star with the word SHERIFF across it. From the look of it, it had been played with and carried about for years. The edges were worn down to a smooth dullness.
The toy badge conjured images of a young Colin, probably big even as a toddler, as he proudly wore a sheriff’s badge. Smiling, Gemma ran her hand around the star, then glanced at the clock. If she didn’t want to be late, she’d better get showered and dressed for dinner.
Thirty minutes later, Gemma looked in the mirror and knew she’d done the best she could. She’d put on light makeup and dark trousers with a teal blue silk shirt. Her shoes were sensible heels and well worn, but polished. She reminded herself that she was trying for a job, not to become a member of the family.
She had her hand on the doorknob, ready to go into the inside of a house that she’d not seen, but she chickened out. Instead, she ran to the side door, stepped onto the little porch, and ran down the stairs to the ground. Now what? she wondered. Should she go to the front door and ring the bell?
“Oh, crap!” she heard a woman say. A few feet away was a screen door, and when Gemma looked inside she saw a large, modern kitchen. Standing in the center of it was a tall, beautiful woman, her lustrous dark hair pulled back into a soft chignon. She had on black silk trousers and an emerald green top that clung to her rather remarkable bosom. This wasn’t what Gemma had imagined when Colin had said the woman coming to cook was a friend of “the whole family.” If she was someone’s girlfriend, Gemma certainly hoped she wasn’t Colin’s.
With a jolt, Gemma realized that for all of the woman’s elegance and beauty, she was leaning over the island, holding her left hand up, and blood was trickling down her arm. She wasn’t moving, just staring at the blood with glassy eyes.
Gemma threw back the door, ran inside, grabbed the woman’s wrist, and pulled her to the sink. She turned on the cold water and pushed the woman’s hand under it.
“Where’s the first aid kit?” Gemma asked, but the woman didn’t say anything. Gemma grabbed a dishtowel on the countertop and wrapped it around the cut finger. She turned off the water, then led the woman to sit down on a tall wooden stool, and went in search of bandages. She found a big box of first aid supplies in a white metal box hanging on the wall in the walk-in pantry.
With the box in hand, Gemma hurried back to the woman, who hadn’t moved so much as an eyelid since she’d left her. Gemma was regretting having left her cell phone upstairs. If she had to call an ambulance, she’d need it. But then, she reminded herself that Colin was probably nearby, and he’d know what to do.
Gently, Gemma removed the cloth from the woman’s hand. She needed to see how bad the injury was before she called for help. When she saw that the cut was shallow and not very big at all, she looked at the woman in disbelief, but she was still sitting in stony silence, her beautiful face drained of color.
Carefully, Gemma bandaged her finger. “I think you’ll be okay now.”
The woman said nothing.
“I’m Gemma. I’m one of the applicants for the job and—”
“The rolls!” the woman said as she jumped up, ran to the big stove, and threw open the oven door. She started to reach for the hot metal sheet, but since she was keeping her injured hand elevated and the other one was bare, she couldn’t get them out.
“I’ll do it,” Gemma said as she picked up pot holders and removed the tray of bread.
“I’m a real wimp,” the woman said as she sat back down on the stool. “When it comes to blood, especially my own, I’m a coward. I’m Jean Caldwell, and thanks a lot for this. If you hadn’t come by I probably would have fainted, then dinner would have been ruined. That would have meant the Fraziers would have to order in pizza—which the men would have loved.” Jean sighed. “Maybe you shouldn’t have saved me.”
Gemma smiled, but Jean’s face was still too white. “Why don’t you stay seated and let me help with this?” The top of the stove had a bubbling pot on each of the six burners.
“You can cook?”
“Not at all, but I’m excellent at following directions. It’s what I’ve been doing since I was five.”
“Oh, right, school. I remember thinking that I couldn’t wait to get away from the professors and be free. Little did I know that bosses make teachers look like angels.”
“I take it you’ve never had Dr. Fredrickson.”
Jean smiled. “Colin said you were funny.”
“Did he?” Gemma said and couldn’t help feeling good at the compliment. His girlfriend wouldn’t make such a remark, would she? “Do I need to do anything to any of this?”
“Turn off that left back burner, and stir that orange pot. Good. I hear Colin took you with him when he played hooky this afternoon.”
Gemma didn’t turn around. There was something so possessive in the way Jean said his name that Gemma’s heart began to sink. “He . . .” she said tentatively.
“I don’t blame either of you,” Jean said. “I’ve met Isla and Kirk. She came in here and started giving me cooking instructions. I got rid of her by asking her to chop onions. Then that prissy little Kirk came in and stuck a spoon in my osso bucco. He said it needed more salt. Colin took him away before I slammed his face in the pot. Would you like some wine?”
Gemma worked to keep any expression off her face, but the euphoria she’d felt all day was leaving her.
Jean refilled her own glass from a bottle of red wine that was sitting open on the stone countertop. “I need this if I’m going to face those two at dinner.” She pointed to a cabinet and Gemma opened it to see wineglasses. “Sorry to be such an invalid, but I’ve been in court all day. My feet are killing me. Then I had to drive the nearly seventy miles from Richmond, and when I got here I was introduced to that Isla. She seemed to think she and I were destined to be best friends.”
Gemma nodded, glad Jean was speaking of something besides Colin. “I’m sure Isla believes she’s won. She doesn’t consider me a worthy opponent, so she doesn’t bother with me, either here or at school.”
“I can’t see her in that mess Alea bought, so what is she really after?”
“I think she wants Lanny, but Colin says she’s after Shamus.” Gemma watched to see if Jean would show any emotion at Gemma’s mention of Colin’s name, but she didn’t. Either they weren’t a couple or Jean was very secure.
Jean laughed. “That sounds like something Colin would say. The other brother, Pere, isn’t here. He’s the pretty one. Isla would probably do a lap dance for him. Would you turn down the heat under that big skillet? Colin doesn’t like his beef overcooked. Thanks.”
“The problem . . .” Gemma said as she slowly sipped her wine. She was trying to adjust to what she was beginning to see as a fact: Colin and Jean were a couple. “Is that Mrs. Frazier likes Isla.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” Jean lowered her voice. “You can never guess what the Fraziers are thinking.”
“Even Colin?”
“He’s the worst! The stories I could tell you!” Jean said. “He knows a lot of people, and he listens to them, takes care of them. But even people who consider Colin their best friend don’t know what his problems are. He keeps them to himself.”
“I’ll have to remember that,” Gemma said and thought how he’d evaded her more personal questions. She was trying to recover from finding out that Colin was taken.