Copper Lake Secrets (13 page)

Or maybe he really didn’t recognize him. Maybe he’d dismissed Jones and Glen as nuisances who’d temporarily gotten in his way, who weren’t worthy of a place in his memory fifteen years later. Maybe the snakelike look was for Jones the garden designer trying to do business with Miss Willa, not for Jones the kid who’d once thwarted him.

He came closer, his intent to sit down showing when he’d actually lowered himself to Reece’s bench. A shiver danced up her arms and she slid, in record time, to the far end of the bench, giving Mark plenty of room. She didn’t relax, either, Jones noted, when he left plenty of that room between them. She was trying to hide it, but she still looked trapped.

“So you’re the gardener looking to part Grandmother from her money.”

Jones picked up his glass, rattling the ice in the tea. He didn’t bother to correct his occupation—that would just let Mark know he’d gotten to him—but instead said evenly, “I’m the one she approached about her project.”

“You don’t feel guilty?”

“For what?”

“Entering into a deal with a senile old woman.”

Jones would have coughed up tea if he hadn’t already swallowed. “Little woman? Five foot nothin’, ninety pounds if that? White hair, sharp gaze that doesn’t miss a trick? Proper and determined and stubborn as hell? I just want to be sure we’re talking about the same woman, because there’s
nothing
senile about the one I’m dealing with.”

Color tinged Mark’s cheeks. “‘Senile’ was a bad word choice.” Before anyone could ask him what word he would substitute, probably digging himself a deeper hole, he went on. “You have to admit this plan of hers is ridiculous. She’s almost eighty, for God’s sake. Spending all that money, and for what? Some silly gardens that don’t belong that she might not even live long enough to see completed.”

“I don’t think it’s ridiculous at all. The gardens were there longer than they’ve been gone. To most historians, Fair Winds without its gardens is just a shadow of its former self.”

Mark snorted. “I don’t give a damn what most historians think. It’s not their property. It’s not their money.”

Very quietly, still pressed against the wall, Reece said, “It’s not yours, either.”

Mark turned his scowl on her. “Of course you’re siding with Grandmother, trying to get back in her good graces.” Then his gaze shifted between them, turning speculative. “Or is there more to it than that? Isn’t it a coincidence, the two of you showing up here at the same time, him wanting to take thousands of Grandmother’s money, you encouraging her every step of the way?”

Just the accusation was enough to turn Reece’s cheeks a guilty pink in spite of her rigid denial. “I’d never met Jones until the day Grandmother introduced us.”

Which Mark knew, of course, was a lie. Jones watched anger ripple through the other man as he struggled to control it. Mark may have grown up. Adult responsibilities and a family of his own may have made him regret the sins of his youth. He may have become a better person, one who matched the stories Jones had heard since arriving in town.

But he still had that sense of entitlement.

And he still had that temper.

“Never discount the power of fate,” Jones said mildly, drawing Mark’s attention back to him. “I’ve always been interested in the Fair Winds gardens, since I was a kid. And Reece’s, ah, friend was the one who persuaded her to come back now.”

“Friend?” Mark echoed.

She forced an almost natural smile. “My psychic advisor.”

For a long time Mark simply stared at her. Then he laughed. It was unexpected and hearty and broke the tension at the table. “You see a psychic? Does Grandmother know that? Oh, my God. When Macy was pregnant with Clara, she went to a psychic here in town just to find out if everything was all right, and Grandmother about pitched a fit. You’d’ve thought she’d had a voodoo priest kill a chicken for her and drank its blood, the way Grandmother carried on.”

“Grandmother doesn’t know everything,” Reece replied, “and she doesn’t know Evie.”

Mark dragged his fingers through his hair. “Look, I’m sorry. I don’t like this whole idea. Grandmother brought it up while Grandfather was alive—repeatedly—and he was adamantly against it. He hated those gardens enough to destroy them, and whatever his reason, I think we should respect his wishes. Just because he’s passed is no reason to forget everything he said.” His gaze moved to Jones. “And it
is
a hell of a lot of money. And she
is
old. I just hate to see…”

“What about respecting Grandmother’s wishes?” Reece shifted on the bench to face Mark.

The question flustered him. He seemed to take good care of Miss Willa, as much as she needed it, but he’d always been closer to Arthur, Jones remembered. It was Arthur Mark had complained to, Arthur who encouraged him to think he was lord of everything and everyone around him.

Arthur he’d threatened Jones and Glen with.

Mark sat silent a long time, his expression growing more chastened by the moment. At last, after clearing his throat, he spoke. “Of course Grandmother’s wishes matter. It was just
so
important to Grandfather that Fair Winds remain the way he left it.”

“Why?” Reece asked.

Mark smiled ruefully. “Damned if I know. I just know he hated the gardens. He hated flowers in general—wouldn’t have them in or around the house. I always thought maybe it had something to do with his father’s death, because he tore out the gardens right after Great-grandfather passed. We didn’t even have flowers at his funeral. Grandmother ordered that all arrangements be sent to the old folks’ homes in town instead.”

Arthur had been fairly young when his father died—twenty-four or twenty-five—Jones reflected. The old man, if he remembered the history right, had died one day in the garden—heart attack or stroke, no one had been sure. Arthur had been the one to find him, toppled over on a freshly replanted bed. If they had been very close, if the flowers had reminded Arthur of the heartbreak of that day…

Jones supposed it was a plausible explanation. His uncle Kevin had never been able to eat fried chicken again, his wife’s specialty, after her death. People handled grief in different and sometimes odd ways.

“I know Grandmother loves flowers. I just don’t see why she can’t be satisfied with a normal garden plot, like everyone else.”

“Grandmother’s never been satisfied with ‘normal’ anything. She’s not like everyone else, you know. She’s a Howard.”

The dry tone of Reece’s voice drew Jones’s gaze. He’d bet his entire business that all she’d wanted in life was normalcy: father, mother, home, extended family. With the exception of her father, she’d gotten anything but normal, to the point that she’d basically written off her family and made a new one for herself with friends. How hard had it been for her that summer, having to be a Howard and never getting it right?

Harder than it had been for Jones to be a Traveler. At least his family had loved him. The men in the family had taught him how to do everything except abide by the law, and the women had spoiled him. He’d disappointed them, but because of what he wanted, not who he was.

Reece had never been a proper Howard; it wasn’t in her. And her grandparents hadn’t let her forget it.

Mark’s sigh was heavy and resigned. “I just hate…”

To see Miss Willa bury Arthur’s wishes with heavy equipment, stonework and an entire nursery full of flowers? Or to see that money leave the family coffers? A bit of both, Jones suspected.

And it was going to be a hell of a lot more than just thousands. Jones didn’t work on the budgets—Lori oversaw that—but he could give a ballpark figure for a project of this size. The final number, to do everything Miss Willa wanted, would knock ol’ Mark flat.

Though most of Jones’s clients rarely got exactly what they initially wanted. Even among the very wealthy, there were usually compromises.

Mark exhaled again. “All right. I’ll accept Grandmother’s wishes. I don’t approve, but as she so succinctly pointed out, it’s not my business.” He stood, but paused before walking away. “Hey, Clarice, will you tell her I can’t make it tonight? Macy’s got some kind of mommy’s night-out thing tonight, so I’ve got Clara. Since Grandmother believes small children should be seen and not heard, and Clara insists on being heard all the time, they don’t spend much time together.”

“I’ll let her know.”

With a grim nod, he went to the counter, picked up a foam container and left.

“I wondered how Grandmother got along with her great-granddaughter,” Reece commented as she settled more comfortably on the bench. “It doesn’t surprise me that she doesn’t.”

“She’s not big on displays of affection.”

She shook her head. “The first time we visited here, she was waiting for us on the patio. She air-kissed my mother, gave my father a stiff little hug, then looked down her nose at me, told me I was to refer to her as Grandmother—not Grandma, MeMe or anything else—and recited the rules for residence at Fair Winds, however temporary the visit might be. No running, roughhousing, loud play, interrupting, picking at food, raising one’s voice, disturbing the adults…”

“So the first thing you did was go inside and shriek, ‘Where are the ghosts, Daddy?’”

She smiled, unaccountably pleased that he’d remembered her comment from the morning before. “I can’t tell you how many times during that visit he had to say ‘She’s just a kid’ to all of them—Grandmother, Grandfather and even Valerie. And it wasn’t an acceptable excuse to any of them.”

Jones’s features softened, reminding her again of how handsome he was. Watching him sitting there across from Mark, she’d been struck by their differences: total opposites, hard versus soft, tough and indulged, independent and very dependent, easygoing and quick to rile. By Howard standards, Jones was surely nowhere close to Mark’s exalted status, but by
this
Howard’s standards, he was head and shoulders above.

He was drop-dead-sexy handsome. He loved his dog. He’d been nothing but friendly to her and respectful to Grandmother. And when he smiled…

He did it now, well aware of her scrutiny and amused by it. “You want to sit here while we wait for the garage to call, or would you prefer to see more of the town?”

“Let’s hit the town.” Maybe she would see something or someone that would jog loose another memory. And it would be harder for her to stare at him while they were moving.

Though he offered to pay her tab, she did so herself and he let her without arguing. She liked that.

Back outside, they turned west, strolling along the sidewalk toward the river. She gazed at storefronts and into offices, wondering if she’d ever walked this sidewalk before. Had she played in the square or been inside that beautiful house Jones had pointed out? Had she accompanied Grandmother on shopping trips to any of these stores?

The questions made her head hurt. For the thousandth time, she wished she were like most other twenty-eight-year-old women: average, everyday, with total recall of an average life. And for the thousandth time, she reminded herself that she wasn’t.

Realizing that they’d covered nearly a block in silence, she grabbed at the nearest sight—twinkling diamonds in a jewelry-store window display. “Are you married?” The minute the question was out, it struck her as odd that she hadn’t asked sooner. She’d just assumed he was single. Something about him—she couldn’t even say what—gave the impression that he didn’t have a wife and kids waiting back in Kentucky for him, that he wasn’t missing a part of himself.

Not that all married men missed their wives. But her father had, and she just had this sense that Jones would, too.

“No. Never have been.”

“Why not?”

“Same reason as you. I’ve never met anyone I’d want to go home to or hate to be away from.”

She kept her gaze on the store windows as they walked, too often catching a glimpse of his reflection in the glass. “Do you want to be someday?”

“I always figured I would. Isn’t that kind of what we’re taught to expect? We grow up, we get married, have kids and grow old.” He shrugged, and his shirt rippled in the window glass.

The street they were on ended at River Road. One block to the left was the square; to the right were the types of businesses that seemed to line the main road out of any town. Straight ahead, starting next to the last building, was a park that filled the narrow space between river and road. She headed that way.

As parks went, there was nothing special about Gullah Park: no flower beds or fancy playgrounds. At this point, there wasn’t even a parking lot, though a clearing to the north looked as if it might be for that purpose. There was just neatly mown grass, tall live oaks whose massive branches spread in every direction and a paved path for runners. She walked to the edge of the river, lowering herself to a cushion of grass, her toes just inches from the water.

Jones leaned against a tree branch that dipped so low it required man-made support to stop its own weight from crashing it into the river. Hands shoved in his pockets, he watched her.

She watched the lazy current and breathed deeply of the damp, earthy, fishy smell. “Each time we visited Grandmother, Daddy took me fishing outside the main gate of Fair Winds. He was happier outside than in. We never caught anything—we splashed around too much for that—but it didn’t matter. He said fishing wasn’t about catching fish. It was about peace and quiet and freedom.”

Jones pushed away from the tree and sat beside her. “Trust me, when you’re hungry, it’s about catching fish.”

Resting her arms on her knees, she tilted her head just enough to see his face. “Have you been hungry?”

“A time or two. Not in a lot of years.”

She looked back at the river. It stretched half a mile to the western bank, dotted with condos and large houses. There was a bridge to the south, nothing but water and trees to the north, save a boat anchored in the middle. Though a fishing pole was mounted on the side, the fisherman appeared to be snoozing.

“What happened between you and your family?” The words came out so softly, and he remained so still beside her, that she wasn’t sure he’d heard. She’d decided she wouldn’t repeat the question because it wasn’t any of her business when he moved, just the blur of a shrug in her peripheral vision.