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‘Because...’
‘What did he ever do for me?’
‘Not about John!’ She could understand his indifference and resentment of the other man. On that head it was John’s stance that baffled her. She leaned across the table until its edges dug into her ribs. ‘Don’t you care that you have a brother or sister somewhere in the wide world?’
One shoulder lifted. He reached for the last unmangled cupcake. A dark lick of hair fell across his forehead. Nell pushed away from the table to stare, unseeing, out of the kitchen window, determined not to watch him demolish it with those delectable lips, determined not to watch him demolish it the way he seemed hell-bent on destroying this chance, this gift, he’d been given.
She pressed her hands to her chest. To have a sibling...
She stilled. She glanced back behind her for a second and then spun back. Rick hadn’t left. He hadn’t read John’s letter and then stormed out. He had shared the letter with her. Rick could feign indifference and couldn’t-care-less disregard all he wanted, but if he really didn’t care he’d have left by now.
Her cupcakes were good, but they weren’t that good.
She sat again. ‘I wish I had a brother or sister.’
‘And whose image would you most like them cast in?’ He leaned back, hands clasped behind his head. ‘Your mother’s or your father’s?’
She flinched. He blinked and for a moment she thought he might reach across the table to touch her. He didn’t. She forced herself to laugh. ‘I guess there is always that. A sibling may have provided further proof that I was the cuckoo in the nest.’
‘I didn’t mean it like that.’
The hell he hadn’t. ‘It’s okay.’ She made her voice wry. ‘You’ve had a shock, so it’s okay to say hurtful things to other people.’
He scrubbed a hand across his face. ‘I didn’t mean for it to be hurtful. I’m sorry. I just refuse to turn this into a “they-all-lived-happily-ever-after” fairy tale like you seem so set on doing.’
He didn’t want to get his hopes up. She couldn’t blame him for that.
He rose. ‘I believe I’ve long outstayed my welcome.’
Nell shot to her feet too. ‘But...but we haven’t figured out what marigolds mean yet or—’
‘I’m not sure I care, Princess.’
She opened her mouth, but he shook his head and the expression on his face had her shutting it again. ‘Good girl,’ he said.
Her chin shot up. ‘Don’t patronise me.’
He grinned a grin that made her blood heat and her knees weak and she suddenly wanted him gone. Now. ‘You know where to find me if you decide to investigate this issue further.’ And then she swung away to dump the used coffee grounds into the kitchen tidy. When she turned back he was gone. She sat, her heart pounding as if she’d run a race.
* * *
Rick let himself into Tash’s house, his head whirling and his temples throbbing. What the hell was he supposed to do now?
What do you want to do?
He wanted to run away.
But...
He pulled up short, dragged in a breath and searched for his customary indifference, but he couldn’t find it. Too many thoughts pounded at him. And one hard, implacable truth—he might not be able to do anything with the information John Cox had belatedly decided to impart. Marigolds might remain unsolved forever.
In which case he could jump in his car—now—and head north without a backward glance, without a single regret. Except...
What if Nell does work out what it means?
He had a brother or a sister. He rested his hands against his knees and tried to breathe through the fist that tightened around his chest.
‘That you, Rick?’
Tash’s voice hauled him upright. ‘Yep, just me,’ he called back, shoving aside the worst of his anger and confusion. Tash might be his best friend, but he wasn’t sharing this news with anyone.
He just hoped the Princess would keep her mouth shut too.
He forced his feet down the hallway and into Tash’s living room—still full of sun and summer, and all he wanted to do was close his eyes and sleep. One glance at him and Tash’s eyes narrowed. ‘What did Nell want?’
He swung away to peer into the fridge. ‘Soda?’
‘No, thanks.’
He grabbed a soda and then sauntered over to plant himself in an armchair.
Tash folded her arms. ‘She’s obviously pushed your buttons.’
‘Nah, not really.’ He shrugged. ‘She wanted to know if I had the time and the inclination to do some work on Whittaker House.’
‘Oh, Lord, you’re going to make the Princess your next project?’
He stretched out a leg. ‘I haven’t decided yet.’ He took a long drink. The cold liquid helped ease the burning in his throat. ‘Mind you, the place is going to rack and ruin.’
‘It’s a shame. It’s such a nice old place. Gossip has it that she only moved back in this week so she’s not wasting any time getting things shipshape again.’ Tash sent him one of her looks. ‘Rumour has it that she’s far from cash-happy at the moment.’
‘I kinda got that impression. What else does rumour say?’
Tash managed a local pub—The Royal Oak. Lots of workers from the glass factory drank there. What Tash didn’t know about local happenings wasn’t worth knowing.
‘Well, apparently there’s no love lost between Nell and her father.’
She could say that again.
‘Old Mrs Smythe-Whittaker left the house to Nell and I’m not sure how these things work, but it was left in trust for her father to manage until Nell turned twenty-five.’ Tash’s lips twisted. ‘Nell turned twenty-five earlier in the week. She moved in and...’
‘Her father moved out?’
‘Bingo.’
Before he could ask any more, Mitch came striding into the room. ‘Hey, gorgeous.’
‘Hey, doll,’ Rick murmured back, but neither Tash nor Mitch paid him the slightest attention.
Tash flew out of her chair to launch herself at the big blond detective. ‘Catch any bad guys today?’
Mitch thrust out his chest and pounded on it with one hand. ‘Loads.’
For a moment it made Rick grin. Mitch the shrewd detective and Tash the take-no-prisoners barmaid in love and flirting. A miracle of miracles.
He rose and set off back down the hallway for the front door. ‘I’m eating out tonight,’ he tossed over his shoulder.
He needed time to think.
He pushed out of the front door, his hand clenching into a fist. This whole thing could be an elaborate hoax, a nasty trick.
Or you could have a brother or a sister.
Could he really walk away from this?
He lengthened his stride but the thoughts and confusion continued to bombard him. Damn it all to hell! Why did this have to involve the Princess? She’d been trouble fifteen years ago and hard-won wisdom warned him she’d be trouble now.
There was something about her that set his teeth on edge too.
Somewhere inside him a maniacal laugh started up.
* * *
The next afternoon, Nell swiped a forearm across her brow and stared at the mountain of dishes that needed washing.
Staring at them won’t get them done. If she were going to take a half-day on Mondays then she needed to use that time productively. She started to move towards them when a knock sounded on the back door.
She spun around and then swallowed. Rick. In worn jeans and another tight black T-shirt. And with that bad-boy insolence wrapped tightly around him. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or something altogether different—like apprehensive.
She wiped her hands down her shorts. Instinct warned her that the less time she spent in Rick’s company the better. Better for her peace of mind and better for her health if the stupid way her heart leapt and surged was anything to go by. She tried to swallow back her misgivings. Her family had done this man no favours. She owed him for that.
With a sigh she waved him inside, kissing goodbye to the notion of a clean kitchen followed by a soak in a hot tub with a good book. ‘Good afternoon.’
He just nodded as he took the same seat at the table as he had the previous day.
‘Can I get you anything?’
‘No, thanks.’
Neither of them spoke and the silence grew heavy. Nell moistened her lips. ‘I...’ She couldn’t think of anything to say.
Rick’s gaze speared to hers. ‘Shall I tell you what occurred to me overnight?’
Her mouth dried though she couldn’t have explained why. She gave a please continue shrug.
‘I wondered if there was the slightest possibility that by staying here it meant John Cox had the chance to remain close to his other child?’
It took a moment for that inference to sink in. In a twisted way, she could see how he could make that leap. Without a word she went to her important documents drawer and pulled out a folder. She opened her mouth to try and explain its contents only to snap it shut. She shoved the folder at Rick instead. The contents could speak for themselves.
He stared at her for a moment and then riffled through the enclosed sheaf of papers. A frown lowered over his face even as his chin lifted. For a moment he looked like a devil. One who’d cajole with dark temptations that could only end in destruction and ruin. Her heart kicked in her chest.
She swallowed and looked away.
‘This is a paternity test your father had done...twelve years ago.’
‘That’s correct. He arranged for that test when he and my mother divorced. As he said at the time, he had no intention of being financially responsible for a child that wasn’t his.’ Only the tests had shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was his daughter.
And that he was her father.
Rick slammed the folder shut. ‘God, Nell, that man’s a nightmare of a father!’
She turned back and raised an eyebrow. ‘Snap.’
He rocked back and then a grin crept across those fascinating lips of his and a light twinkled in those dark eyes and some of the awkwardness between them seeped away. ‘Okay, you got me there. I’ll pay that.’
And then he laughed, and the laugh completely transformed him. It tempered the hard, insolent edges and made him look young and carefree. It made him breathtakingly attractive too, in a dangerous, thrilling way that had her blood surging and her pulse pounding.
She swallowed. ‘On that head, though...’ She nodded at the folder. ‘I can’t say I blame him. My mother isn’t the kind of woman who has ever let the truth get in the way of a...good opportunity.’
Her mother was in the Mediterranean with husband number four the last she’d heard, which was about three times a year. Oh, yes, her family—they were the Brady Bunch all right.
Rick clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back. She wondered if he knew precisely how enticing that pose was to a woman—the broad shoulders on display, those biceps and the hard chiselled chest flagrantly defined in the tight black T-shirt angling down to a hard flat abdomen...and all in that deceptively open, easy, inviting posture.
She bet he did.
Even with all of that masculine vigour on display, it was his eyes that held her. He surveyed her until she had to fight the urge to fidget. She reached for another shrug—a pray tell, what on earth do you think you’re staring at? shrug. She was pretty certain she pulled it off with aplomb, but it didn’t stop him staring at her. A ghost of a smile touched his lips. ‘I’m starting to get the hang of those.’
She squinted at him—a what on earth are you talking about? squint. ‘I’m sorry, you’ve lost me.’
He lowered his arms. ‘For all of these years, here I was thinking you had the best of everything.’
She flicked her hair over her shoulders. ‘Of course I did. I had the best education money could buy. I had designer clothes, piano lessons and overseas holidays. I had—’
‘Parents who were as good at parenting as mine.’
She swallowed. ‘One shouldn’t be greedy.’ Or self-pitying. ‘Besides, they were merely products of their own upbringing...and they had their good points.’
‘Name one.’
‘We’ve already uncovered one. They didn’t betray each other so badly that I was the cuckoo they thought I might be. I’m not John’s secret love child and therefore I’m not your mystery sibling.’
‘Just thought I’d ask.’
She hesitated. ‘I did wonder...’
‘What?’
‘Would your mother be able to tell you anything that might be of use?’
She didn’t like to ask about Rick’s mother—she’d been a prostitute. Nell had a lot of bones to pick with her parents, but she’d never had to watch her mother sell her body. She’d always known where her next meal was coming from. She’d had a warm bed to retreat to. She’d been safe. She gripped her hands together. She was very grateful for those things.
Rick shook his head. ‘She developed dementia a few years ago. It’s advanced rapidly. Nine times out of ten, she doesn’t recognise me these days.’
Oh. Her heart burned for him. ‘I’m sorry.’
He merely shrugged. ‘What are you going to do?’ He said it in that casual, offhand way, which only made her heart burn more fiercely.
She clapped her hands together in an attempt to brisk the both of them up. ‘Well, I had another thought too. We should go and check out John’s cottage. It’s been empty since he went into hospital. I mean, I know it was cleaned, but maybe it’ll contain some clue.’
‘It could all be a hoax, you know?’
‘For what purpose?’ She didn’t believe it was a hoax. Not for a moment. And when she made for the door, Rick rose and followed.
They picked their way through the overgrown garden—across the terrace to the lawn and then towards the far end of the block. Whittaker House had been built on generous lines in more generous times. The house and grounds sprawled over the best part of a city block. No wonder her father wanted her to sell it.
She wasn’t selling! But it all needed so much attention. She bit back a sigh. It was all she could do not to let her heart slump with every step they took. It had all been so beautiful once upon a time.
‘Hell, Princess, this looks more like years rather than months of neglect.’
‘John was sick for a long time before he had to go into the hospice. He had a young chap in to help him, but...’ She shrugged and glanced around. Her father hadn’t maintained any of it. ‘There are a lot of vigorous-growing perennials here that have self-seeded and gone wild. It looks worse than it is.’ She crossed her fingers.
‘Do you see any self-seeding marigolds?’
He’d adopted that tone again. ‘I’m afraid marigolds are annuals not perennials. They need to be replanted each year.’
‘Why go to all that bother?’
‘For the colour and spectacular blooms. For the scents and the crazy beauty of it all. Because—’
She slammed to a halt and Rick slammed right into the back of her. ‘What on earth—’
He grabbed her shoulders to steady her, but she didn’t need steadying. She spun around and gripped his forearms. ‘You’ll find a clue where the marigolds grow.’
His face lost some of its cockiness. And a lot of its colour. She couldn’t concentrate when he stared at her so intently. She sat on the edge of the nearest raised bed and rubbed her temples. ‘When did I find out my mother didn’t like marigolds? John told me when I wanted to plant some of my own.’
Rick sat beside her, crushing part of a rampant rosemary bush. The aroma drifted up around them.
‘And why did I want to plant marigolds?’ Oh, but... ‘He couldn’t have known, could he?’
‘Couldn’t have known what?’
She turned to him. ‘After he chased you away that day he gave me my very own garden bed to tend.’
‘And you grew marigolds?’
She shook her head. ‘I wanted to, but I didn’t. You see I had this old chocolate box tin and it had pictures of marigolds on it and I showed it to John and told him that’s what I wanted to grow.’
Beside her, Rick stiffened. ‘A tin?’
She nodded.
‘What happened to the tin, Nell?’
‘I put all of my treasures in it and...’ But it had been a secret. John couldn’t have known. Could he?
‘What did you do with them?’
‘I buried them here in the garden. After the policeman left. I snuck out in the middle of the night and buried them when nobody could see what I was up to.’ She turned to meet his chocolate-dark eyes. ‘And I never dug it back up.’
He swallowed. ‘Okay, so all we have to do is try to find where you buried it.’ He leaned back on his hands as if he hadn’t a care in the world, but she’d seen beneath the façade now. ‘I bet you’ve long forgotten that?’
No. She remembered. Perfectly.
She leaned back on her hands too, crushing more rosemary until the air was thick with its scent. She drew a breath of it into her lungs. ‘Doesn’t that remind you of a Sunday roast?’
He didn’t say anything.
‘What are you afraid of?’ She asked the question she had no right to ask. She asked because he kept calling her Princess and it unnerved her and she wanted to unnerve him back.
‘Where I come from, Nell, Sunday roasts weren’t just a rarity; they were non-existent.’
He said her name in a way that made her wish he’d called her Princess instead.
He leaned in towards her. ‘And what am I afraid of? I’m afraid this isn’t some hoax your gardener has decided to play and that everything he’s said is true. I’m afraid I have a thirteen-year-old brother somewhere out there growing up by the scruff of his neck the way I did and with no one to give him a hand.’
Her stomach churned.
‘I’m afraid he’s going to end up in trouble. Or, worse, as a damn statistic.’
She pressed a hand to her stomach and her mouth went so dry she couldn’t swallow.
‘Is that good enough for you?’
It wasn’t good. It was horrible. Her parents might not have been all that interested in her, but she hadn’t been allowed to roam the streets unchecked or at risk of being taken advantage of. Her parents might not have been interested in her, but she had been protected.
‘I remember exactly where I buried it, Rick.’
He stared and then he half laughed. ‘You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?’
She leapt up and dusted off her shorts. ‘We’d better hope John put it back in exactly the same spot or we’re going to be spending a lot of time digging.’
She led the way to the garden shed. She grabbed a spade, secateurs and a couple of trowels. And gloves. Rick merely scoffed when she asked if he’d like a pair too. ‘On your own head be it,’ she warned. ‘We’re heading for the most overgrown part of the garden.’
He took the spade and secateurs before sweeping an elegant bow. ‘Lead the way, Princess.’
It was crazy, but it made her feel like a princess. Not a princess on a pedestal, but a flesh and blood one.
She led him across to the far side of the garden. ‘I’ll trade you a trowel for the secateurs.’ He handed them to her and she cut back canes from a wisteria vine gone mad. ‘That’s going to be a nightmare whenever I find the time to deal with it,’ she grumbled. She cut some more so he had room to move in beside her. ‘Believe it or not, there’s a garden bed there.’
She trimmed the undergrowth around it, found the corners. It wasn’t as big as she remembered, but that still didn’t make it small.
She moved into the centre of it, stomping impatiens and tea roses. She closed her eyes and shuffled three steps to the right. She took a dolly step forward and drew an X on the ground. ‘X marks the spot,’ she whispered.
CHAPTER THREE
RICK STARED AT the spot and cold sweat prickled his nape. What the hell was he doing here?
To run now, though, would reveal weakness and he never showed weakness. In the world where he’d grown up weakness could prove fatal.
Not showing weakness and acting with strength, though, were two different things. When Nell took one of the trowels from his nerveless fingers, he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. He couldn’t move to help her. He couldn’t ask her to stop.
‘The spade will be overkill, I expect. The ground is soft and although it felt like I’d dug for a long time I was only ten so I expect the tin shouldn’t be buried too deeply.’
It was only when she dropped to her knees in the dirt that Rick was able to snap back to himself. ‘Princess, you’ll get dirty.’
She grinned, but she didn’t look up. ‘I like getting mucky in the garden.’
She certainly knew how to wield a trowel.
‘Cupcakes aren’t the only things I’m good at, you know?’
‘I didn’t doubt for a moment that you’d be a gardening expert too.’ He wondered if he should climb into the garden bed and help her. Except she looked so at home and he had a feeling he’d only get in the way. ‘Can I help?’
Her grin widened. ‘Nah, you just stand there and look pretty.’
He couldn’t help it. He had to grin too.
‘I can cook other things too. I’ll cook you a Sunday roast some time and then you’ll know what I meant about the scent of rosemary.’
Something hard and unbending inside him softened a fraction. Digging in the garden, grinning and teasing him, she was the antithesis of the haughty, superior woman she’d turned into yesterday. He could see now that he’d done something to trigger that haughtiness because Nell used her supercilious shrugs and stuck her nose in the air as a shield. The same way he used his devil-may-care grins and mocking eyebrows.
As he continued to stare at her, some parts of him might be softening, but other parts were doing the exact opposite. He adjusted his stance and concentrated on getting himself back on an even keel.
He wasn’t letting a slip of a girl—any girl—knock him off balance.
‘Princess, I admire cooking and gardening skills as much as the next man, but it’s all very domestic goddessy.’ A bit old-fashioned. He was careful to keep the judgement out of his voice and the mockery from his eyebrows. He didn’t want her getting all hoity-toity again.
‘Oh, that’d be because—’
She froze. It was only for a second but he was aware of every fraction of that second—the dismay on her face, the way the trowel trembled and then the stubborn jut of her jaw. She waved a hand in the air, dismissing the rest of whatever she’d been about to say.
He frowned. What on earth...?
Metal hitting metal made them both freeze. With a gulp, Nell continued digging. Rick collapsed onto the wooden sleeper that made the border for the bed and tried to ease the pounding in his chest.
Within a few moments Nell had freed the tin, brushed the dirt from its surface along with the dirt from her knees. She dropped the trowel at Rick’s feet and settled herself beside him. The tin sat in her lap. They both stared at it as she pulled her hands free of the gloves. She reached out to trace the picture on the lid.
‘Marigolds,’ he said softly.
She nodded.
‘Why didn’t John let you plant marigolds here?’
‘Because my mother didn’t like them, remember?’
‘Nobody would’ve seen them all the way down the back here.’
She lifted a shoulder. ‘I found it was always best not to make waves if one could help it.’
‘I decided on an opposite course of action.’
She glanced up with a grin, her green eyes alive with so much impish laughter it made his chest clench. ‘You did at that. I’m going to take a leaf out of your book and fill this entire garden bed with marigolds.’
Good for her.
She held the tin out to him. ‘Would you like to do the honours?’
His mouth went dry. He shook his head. ‘They were your treasures.’ He couldn’t help adding, ‘Besides, you could be wrong and maybe John never knew about the tin.’
‘I’m not wrong.’
Her certainty had his heart beating hard and fast.
She sent him a small smile. ‘Well, here goes.’ And she prised the lid off.
An assortment of oddments met his gaze. Silly stuff one would expect a ten-year-old to treasure. And from it all she detached a small gold locket that he recognised immediately. She held it out to him and his heart gave a gigantic kick. ‘When I buried this I swore that if I ever had the chance I’d give it to you.’