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“Darling,” her voice chirped through the interior of the car. “I was wondering if I was going to hear from you today.”
“Between work at the office and planning this dinner party, I’ve been swamped.” He could hear from the background noise on her phone that she wasn’t at home. “Where are you now?”
“At a Women’s League meeting. I’m already not-so-subtly campaigning for you, Trey.”
He smiled, certain that she was doing just that. “You know I appreciate it.”
“You’d better,” she replied with a laugh. “Rumor has it your mother is seriously considering running for president. We’ll let her have that position for two terms and then we’ll be ready to move into the White House.”
Trey laughed. “One step at a time, Cecily. This dinner party will let me know if I can get some of the big hitters in town behind me in order to achieve the first step in the process.”
“You can take it one step at a time, but I’m already envisioning what the White House Christmas tree will look like,” she replied with a laugh. “Oh, gotta go. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
She ended the call and Trey shook his head. Cecily McKenna was like a force of nature, unstoppable and powerful and completely in his corner. She would make a perfect ally and support as a wife.
He pulled into the parking lot of the Brookside Nursing Home, an upscale establishment where his grandmother, Eunice, had resided since Walt’s death.
When she’d lost her husband she had spiraled into a depression so deep nobody seemed to be able to pull her out. Trey knew one of the most difficult decisions his mother had made was to move her own mother here instead of keeping her living at the estate. But Eunice needed more than what Kate and the family could provide.
After several months of residency Eunice had appeared to rally from her depression. She seemed quite content where she was, in a small apartmentlike set of rooms with an aid who stayed with her twenty-four hours a day.
He nodded to the security guard on duty outside the front door and entered into a small lobby with a couple of elegant chairs and a front desk.
“Good evening, Mr. Winston,” Amy Fedder, a middle-aged woman behind the reception desk greeted him. He was a frequent visitor and knew most of the people on staff.
“Hi, Amy.” He walked to the desk where there was a sign-in sheet and quickly signed his name and the time he’d arrived. “Have you heard how she’s doing today?”
“I know she had dinner in the dining room and earlier in the day she joined a group of women playing bingo.”
“Then it sounds like it’s been a good day for her,” he replied, a happiness filling him. He adored his grandmother. “Thanks Amy, I’ll see you on my way out.” He left the front desk and headed for the elevator, which would take him to the second floor where his grandmother’s little apartment was located. It amused him that her place was in what the nursing home called the west wing.
There were only forty residents at any given time in Brookside and almost as many staff members. The nursing home catered to the wealthy and powerful who wanted their loved ones in an upscale environment with exceptional care and security. Every member of the staff had undergone intense background and security checks before being hired and there was a front door and a back door, both with an armed security guard on duty at all times.
He got off the elevator and walked down a long hallway, passing several closed doors before he arrived at apartment 211.
He knocked and the door was answered by Serena Sue Sana, a tall beautiful African-American woman who went by the nickname of Sassy. She was of an indeterminable age, but Trey guessed her to be somewhere in her mid-sixties.
“Mr. Trey,” she greeted him, her white teeth flashing in a bright smile. “Come in.” She opened the door wider. “Ms. Eunice will be so happy to see you.” She leaned closer to him. “She’s had a good day but seems a bit agitated this evening,” she whispered.
He nodded and walked into the nice-size living room with a small kitchenette area and doors that led to the bathroom and two bedrooms, one large and one smaller.
His eighty-six-year-old grandmother was where she usually was at this time of the evening, her small frame nearly swallowed up by the comfortable light blue chair surrounding her.
Her silvery-white hair was pulled up neatly into a bun atop her head and her blue eyes lit up and a smile curved her lips at the sight of him. “I know you,” she said, her affection for him thick in her voice.
“And I know you,” Trey replied as he walked over to her and planted a kiss on her forehead.
“I’ll just go on into my room so you two can have a nice private chat,” Sassy said.
“Before you go, would you make this television be quiet?” Eunice held out the remote control to Sassy.
“I’ll take care of it,” Trey replied. He sat in the chair next to Eunice and took the remote control and hit the mute button as Sassy disappeared into the small bedroom and closed the door behind her.
“I love Sassy to death, but she likes to watch the silliest television shows,” Eunice said. “And sometimes I just like to sit and visit with my favorite grandson.”
“I’ll bet you say that to all your grandsons,” Trey said teasingly.
She giggled like a young girl. “You might be right about that.” Her blue eyes, so like Trey’s mother’s, sparkled merrily.
“I heard you played bingo this afternoon,” Trey said.
Her smile instantly transformed into a frown. “Did I...? Yes, yes I did, although I didn’t win. I never win.” She leaned closer to him. “That woman from downstairs in 108 always wins. I think the fix is in.”
Trey laughed and leaned over and covered her frail hand with his. “You don’t have to win all the time.”
Her eyes flashed and her chin jutted forward with a show of stubbornness. “Adairs always win,” she said, her voice strident as she pulled her hand back from his and instead worried the edge of the fringed shawl that was around her shoulders.
“That’s what we do,” she muttered more to herself than to him. “We win.”
“Speaking of winning, have you talked to Mom lately?”
She frowned again in thought. “She called yesterday...or maybe it was the day before.” She shook her head with obvious agitation. “I can’t remember. Sometimes I can’t remember what happened when, except I have lots of memories of when you boys were young. You three were such a handful. But sometimes my brain just gets a bit scrambled.”
“It’s okay,” Trey said gently. “I was just wondering if she told you that I’m considering a run for the Senate.”
Eunice’s eyes widened. “No, she didn’t tell me.” Her fingers threaded through the shawl fringe at a quicker pace. “She never mentioned that to me before.”
“Then I guess she didn’t tell you that we think she’s also considering a run for the White House,” Trey said.
Eunice appeared to freeze in place, the only movement being her gaze darting frantically around the room as if seeking something she’d misplaced and desperately needed to find.
“Grandma, what is it?” Trey asked.
She stood from her chair and began to pace in front of him, her back slightly bent from the osteoporosis that plagued her. “No. No. No.” The word snapped out of her louder and more frantic with each shuffled step of her feet.
Trey stood in an attempt to reach out and draw her back into her chair, but she slapped his hands away and continued to pace.
“This is bad news.... It’s terrible, terrible news.” She stopped her movement and stared at him, her eyes wide with fear. “You shouldn’t do this. She shouldn’t do this. Pandora’s box, that’s all it will be.”
“What are you talking about? Grandma, what are you afraid of?”
Her eyes filled with tears as she looked at him in horror. “Secrets and lies,” she said in a bare whisper.
Chapter 4
It has to be here, Debra thought frantically as she searched the area on top of her desk. The early morning sun drifted through the office window, letting her know it was getting later and later.
She moved file folders and papers helter-skelter, her heart pounding in her ears as she looked for the missing paperwork. It had to be here, it just had to be.
She distinctly remembered putting the guest list that Trey had given her next to her computer the night before, but it wasn’t there now.
She was already dressed to go to work and had come into the office to grab the list before leaving her place. In a panic she now fell to her hands and knees in the plush carpeting, searching on the floor, hoping that it had somehow drifted off the desk, but it wasn’t there, either.
She checked the wastebasket to make sure it hadn’t fallen into it somehow during the night. Nothing. No list magically appeared.
Half-breathless from her anxious search, she sank down at her desk chair. Think, she commanded herself. After she’d placed it on the desk the night before had she come back in here for any reason and mindlessly placed it elsewhere?
No, she was certain she hadn’t reentered the office again last night. After Trey had left she’d watched a little television and then had gone upstairs to bed. She had not come back into the office.
Was it possible she had sleepwalked and moved the list?
She couldn’t imagine such a thing. As far as she knew she’d never sleepwalked in her life. Besides, she would have had to maneuver herself not just out of her bed, but also down the stairs and into the office all the while being unconscious in sleep.
Impossible. Utterly ridiculous to even entertain such an idea, but the darned list didn’t get up and walk away on its own.
Granted, she’d been unsettled after Trey had left. Maybe she had wandered in here and taken the list someplace else in the house before she’d gone to bed.
With this thought in mind, she jumped out of the chair and raced through the lower level of the house. Her heart pounded in an unsteady rhythm as she checked the kitchen counters, the living-room coffee table and any reasonable place she might have put the list, but it was nowhere to be found.
The thought of calling Trey and asking him for another copy horrified her. She was organized and efficient. She didn’t lose things. So how had she lost such an important piece of paper?
After a run-through of the entire house yielded no results, she finally returned to the kitchen, defeated and knowing she needed to get on the road or she’d definitely be late to work.
She hurried to the refrigerator and opened the freezer to take out a small package of chicken breasts to thaw for dinner and stared at the piece of paper that was slid between them and a frozen pizza.
She grabbed the paper, saw that it was the missing list and hugged it tight to her chest in relief. Hurriedly yanking out the chicken breasts, she set them in the fridge and then raced for the front door, grabbing her purse and coat on the way out.
As she waited for her car to warm up, she folded the guest list and tucked it into her purse, then pulled her coat around her shoulders. She tried to ignore the rapid beating of her heart that still continued, the frantic beat that had begun the moment she’d realized the list was missing.
Heading toward the Winston Estate, she wondered if somehow between last night and this morning her brain had slipped a cog. Had she been so flustered by Trey’s visit that she’d mindlessly placed the list in the freezer?
It was crazy. It was insane, but she couldn’t ignore the fact that she was the only person in the house who could have put the list in the freezer.
Maybe it had something to do with hormones. She had called her doctor to make an appointment for the weekend. Was it possible that pregnancy hormones made you lose your mind? She’d be sure and ask her doctor.
As if to make the day worse, Jerry Cahill was on guard duty as she pulled into the side entrance. The tall, sandy-haired Secret Service man gave her the creeps. He seemed to have some sort of a weird crush on her and had asked her out twice. Both times she’d politely declined but one time last month she’d thought she’d seen him standing on the sidewalk in front of her place and staring at her townhouse.
He stopped her car before she could pull into her usual parking space and motioned for her to roll down her window. “Hey, doll, running a little late this morning, aren’t you?” He leaned too far into her window, invading her personal space.
“Maybe just a few minutes,” she replied.
Jerry had hazel eyes that should have been warm in hue, but instead reminded her of an untamed jungle animal that could spring at a vulnerable throat at any moment.
His breath smelled of peppermint and the fact that he was close enough to smell his breath freaked her out just a little bit.
He held her gaze for a long moment and then stepped back and tapped the top of her car. “Well, I just wanted to tell you to have a good day.”
She rolled up her window and parked her car, feeling revulsion just from the brief encounter. Jerry Cahill might be a Secret Service agent, but that didn’t make him any less of a creep.
She hurried into the house to find Maddie Fitzgerald, head housekeeper, and Myra Henry, head cook, seated at the small table enjoying a cup of coffee together.
“Good morning, Ms. Debra,” Maddie said. Her plump cheeks danced upward with her smile. With red hair cut in a no-nonsense style and her perpetual optimism, Maddie had been around long before Debra. She’d not only been the first person Kate had hired, but she’d helped Kate raise the boys and was intensely devoted to the Winston family, as they all were to her.
“Good morning, ladies,” Debra said. She smiled at Myra and drew in a deep breath. “Is that your famous cinnamon rolls I smell?”
“It is. If you want to get settled into your office I’ll bring you a couple with a nice cup of coffee,” Myra said.
“That sounds heavenly,” Debra replied. “Thanks, Myra.”
She kept her smile pasted on her lips until she reached her office where she hung up her coat and then sank down at her desk. She opened her purse and retrieved the list that Trey had given her.
She’d just set it next to her computer when Myra arrived with a steaming cup of coffee and two large iced cinnamon rolls on an oversize saucer.
“Those look too sinful to eat,” Debra exclaimed as she eyed the goodies.
Myra grinned at her. “I make them special, no calories so there’s no guilt.”
“Yeah, right,” Debra replied with a laugh.
“Enjoy,” Myra said and left the office.
Debra took a sip of the coffee and then got to work typing up the list of names Trey had given her so she’d have a hard copy on her computer. Once it was in the computer she wouldn’t have to worry about losing it again.
She was still troubled twenty minutes later when she had the copy made and leaned back in her chair and drew a deep breath.
“Crisis averted,” she muttered aloud to herself. She picked up one of the cinnamon rolls and took a bite, but her stomach was still in knots because of the morning trauma.
Or was it morning sickness?
She couldn’t think about being pregnant now. She’d think about it after she saw her doctor. Right now she had work to do, not only did she have to pick invitations to be printed and addressed and mailed, there was also the matter of finding a good orchestra to hire for the night of the dinner. Once she got information from Stacy she’d need to meet with Trey to make some final decisions.
It would be easy for her to feel overwhelmed, but Debra knew the way to get things done was focus on one item at a time and not look too far ahead.
Kate’s morning knock came at eight-thirty and Debra instantly got up to join her boss in her office.
“Good morning, Kate,” Debra said as she sat in the chair opposite the desk.
“And a good morning to you,” Kate said with a fond smile. “I’ve already given Haley the things that needed to be taken care of for me this morning. One thing I love about interns is that they’re so eager to please. What I want from you is an update on you and Trey’s visit to the Regent yesterday.”
For the next half an hour Debra filled Kate in on what had transpired at the hotel and where they were in the planning stages.
“I know you’re pulling everything together quickly,” Kate said. “If you need more help, let me know and I’ll assign an assistant for you.”
“Actually, I think Stacy, the hotel event planner is going to be all I need. She seemed to understand exactly what we want, what we need for a successful evening for Trey. I’m expecting her to get me a floor plan and some menu options sometime this morning. That will tell me how good she is at her job.”
“Do you think he’s ready for this?” Kate asked.
“I think he’s more ready than anyone could be,” Debra replied. “I know he’s saying that this dinner party is just to dip his toes in the water to see what kind of support he might have if he decides to run, but I believe he’s already made up his mind. His head is definitely already in the game.”
Kate nodded. “That’s what I believe, too, and Trey never does anything halfway.”
“He’ll make a wonderful senator,” Debra said, unable to keep the passion of her belief out of her voice. “He’ll bring new life and new hope to the people of North Carolina.”
Kate nodded. “I know my son. Even if he decided to be a garbage man he’d be the best in the business. He always does everything well.”
“He’s a chip off the old block,” Debra replied with a smile.
Kate laughed. “Get out of here and get to work on helping my son. I won’t need anything from you today. I know the time constraints you have to get the details of this dinner party under control are incredibly tight, so get to it.”
By the time she got back to her office she’d received a number of emails from Stacy. The young event planner had sent several different seating plans and three menus with prices. Even though she’d had to pull teeth in order for Trey to come up with a budget, Debra intended to negotiate hard to keep costs low and quality high.
She was an old pro at this, having set up dozens of such events in the past for Kate. Despite what Trey had said, budgets always mattered, and it would reflect poorly on his business acumen to not bring the dinner party in as reasonably as possible.
If you wanted the taxpayers to back you, then you had to show a willingness to work within budgets, she thought.
Gathering the emails all together, she knew what she needed now was for she and Trey to have another meeting and make more decisions. She picked up the phone to call him at Adair Enterprises.
The receptionist connected her to him immediately.
“Good morning, Debra.” His deep smooth voice was like a physical caress through the line.
She returned the greeting, although what she wanted to do was tell him about her frantic search for his list that morning, the ridiculousness of finally finding it in the freezer and that Myra’s cinnamon rolls had made her slightly queasy.
Trey told her he intended to come to the house around two and they would meet then to hammer out any decisions that needed to be made. Then they disconnected.
Debra leaned back in her chair and for the first time in years wished she had a best friend. Her entire adult life had been built surrounded by the Winston family. There hadn’t been time for friends outside of the intimacy of the family members.
Certainly her childhood hadn’t been conducive to making friends. She’d never invited anyone to her home, afraid that her classmates might see her mother drunk or hungover. Once she started working for Kate, the work and the family had taken precedence over anything and everyone else.
That had been part of her problem with dating Barry. There had been little time to really grow any meaningful relationship. Although ultimately he’d broken up with her because he told her he wasn’t getting what he needed from her, she’d already intended to break up with him because she’d figured out he was getting what he needed from his married secretary. The jerk.
Maybe it was best that she didn’t have a best friend, she thought as her hand fell to her lap and she caressed her lower belly.
Perhaps she would be tempted to share too much with a best friend, and a secret wasn’t a secret if two people knew about it. And Debra knew better than anyone that she had a secret that had the potential to destroy a career before it began.
* * *
Trey had been disturbed since he’d left the nursing home the night before. His grandmother had become quite agitated before he’d left, frantic as she continued to whisper about secrets and lies.
Sassy had finally come out of her room to deal with the older woman. She’d given Eunice a mild sedative and by the time Trey had left, Eunice had fallen asleep in her chair.
Sassy had assured him that she’d be fine, but as Trey drove to the Winston Estate, he couldn’t help the worry that had been with him since the visit the night before.
He’d always been close to his Adair grandparents and had mourned deeply when Walt had died. Now he was both concerned and confused about his grandmother and after meeting with Debra he intended to speak to his mother about the issue.
The front door of the estate was opened by housekeeper Maddie, who always greeted him as if it had been months since she’d seen him. “And aren’t you looking just fine today,” she said as she took his coat from him. “You know I’ve always liked you in a nice blue suit, it makes those eyes of yours downright beautiful.”
Trey laughed. “You’ve been charming me since I was a baby, Maddie, and the years haven’t changed anything a bit. I’m assuming Debra is in?”
“Holed up in that little office of hers as usual.”
“Would you tell her that I’m here and that I’ll meet her in the sitting room?”
“I’d be happy to. Tea or coffee? Maybe a plate of cookies?” she asked, knowing his weakness for sweets.
“Coffee and what kind of cookies?” he asked.
She smiled at him slyly. “Does it really matter?”
He laughed. “No, it doesn’t, not as long as Myra baked them. Okay, a couple of cookies would be good.” He was still smiling as he entered the informal sitting room where the afternoon sun flooded through the floor to ceiling windows at one end.
The weather system that had brought the little bit of icing the night before had moved on, leaving behind blue skies and sunshine.
Trey sank into one of two beige easy chairs in front of the windows, enjoying the warmth of the sun on his back. Within seconds Myra entered the room, carrying with her a tray that held a small coffeepot, two cups and a plate of oatmeal-raisin cookies he knew would be soft and gooey, just the way he liked them.
“Thanks, Myra,” he told the cook, who nodded and then left him alone in the room.
He poured the coffee into the two cups and thought about having coffee in Debra’s townhome the night before. She was bright and sweet and easy to be around. Last night as he’d sat in her kitchen he’d felt more relaxed than he had in months and he thought it had not been just the cozy surroundings, but also her company.
She didn’t seem to have one high-maintenance bone in her body. He found her blushes charming and the fact that she cooked something special and new just to please herself each Sunday intriguing.
He had nearly destroyed the nice interaction between them by attempting to bring up the night they had spent together, but she’d made it clear that she didn’t want to discuss it and was more than a bit embarrassed by the whole affair.
He should feel embarrassed about it, too. Still, he couldn’t help but admit that he was looking forward to seeing her again. He tried to tell himself that it had nothing to do with any feelings he might have for her. Granted, he’d more than enjoyed his one night with her, but he knew where his duty, where his future lay and it definitely wasn’t with Debra.