The Perfect Bride (15 page)

Jillian shot him a grin, completely unembarrassed to be caught staring or to have him look. He could only grin back.

God, she was amazing. So vital, so full of life. Just the idea of anything happening to this woman—

Not
going to happen,
he vowed.

Finally, all too soon, they were dressed. Unable to resist, he reached for her, moving in for another kiss.

A sharp knock suddenly sounded on the door. They barely had time to move away from each other, let alone acknowledge the knock, before the door swung open. “Hey, boss—”

It was Zack. He came to an abrupt stop just inside the doorway as though sensing
he’d interrupted something. He glanced between the two of them, eyes narrowing.

Adam could imagine what he saw. They hadn’t taken the time to completely straighten their clothes and hair, so they had to look disheveled, as if they’d been—well, as if they’d been doing exactly what they had.

“What is it, Zack?” Adam asked, keeping his tone completely unconcerned.

Zack lowered his
eyes, his discomfort clear. “We’re finished in the ballroom, but Ed is worried part of the basement might flood with all this rain. Looks like there’s already some leakage. He wanted to know if you wanted to come take a look so you’d know what was going on.”

“Thanks, Zack,” Adam said. “I’ll be right out.”

Zack nodded tightly. Ducking his head, he backed out of the room, closing the door
behind him.

As soon as it was shut, Jillian raked a hand through her hair, giving it a makeshift combing. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance he’s
not
going to tell everyone what he just saw—or thinks he saw.”

“I doubt it. I’d give it about thirty minutes, tops, before everyone knows.”

“The only question is, how will the killer react?”

“If they think this means your wedding
is off, they might be happy,” he suggested.

Jillian’s frown deepened. “But then they might not come after me again and we’ll never know who it is.”

“There has to be another way to get to the bottom of this without making you a target.”

“I’m all ears.”

Grimacing, he shot a glance at the window, listening to the wind and rain pounding against the glass. “We’ll figure it out.
In the meantime, let me put in a call to my investigator and get that ball rolling. And then let’s just try to get through this storm without anyone getting hurt.”

Chapter Fourteen

Zack was waiting by the stairs in the front entryway when they came out of the office. Leaning against the banister with his arms folded over his chest, he looked up at their approach and slowly straightened.

As they came closer, Adam studied the younger man, considering what he knew about him. It wasn’t much. Zack was only twenty-four. He’d lived in Hawthorne
and at Sutton Hall for most of his life, except for a year he’d spent in Boston not long ago. He didn’t have a criminal record or any signs of trouble in his past. Adam had hired him mostly because Ray had asked him to and because he obviously knew the estate better than anyone else Adam could have found.

Now, though, he had to wonder if he’d made a mistake, especially when Zack’s gaze slid
to Jillian, his mouth twisting with contempt before he glanced away.

His anger spiking, Adam speared the man with a glare. Under different circumstances, he might have dealt with the man’s attitude more diplomatically, but he wasn’t in the mood to play nice. “Everything all right, Zack?”

Zack grimaced, not looking directly at him. “Fine.”

“If you have something you want to say,
maybe you should just say it.”

Zack clenched his jaw. “It’s none of my business.”

“You’re right,” Adam said. “But I think we’d like to hear what you have to say anyway.”

Zack finally turned that contemptuous glare on Adam. “All right.” He looked straight at Jillian, his lip curling in a sneer. “Guess commitments don’t mean that much to you after all, huh?”

Jillian simply looked
back at him steadily. “Are you upset because you think something happened between Adam and me, or because I didn’t take you up on your offer?”

“My ‘offer’ wasn’t serious,” Zack scoffed. “I just wanted to see how serious
you
were about getting married. Turns out, you’re not. You’re even worse than the last one. At least she never did anything.”

Adam felt Jillian tense beside him. “You
mean the first bride to come here?” she asked.

“Yeah. I saw the way she looked at me. Couldn’t take her eyes off me, all while she was supposed to be planning her wedding.” He shook his head. “Commitments don’t mean that much to anybody, do they?”

“You mean like they didn’t to your mother?”

Zack’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Don’t call her that. She doesn’t deserve the title.”

“There could have been other reasons why she left,” Jillian said gently. “You don’t know—”

“Yeah, I do,” Zack snapped. “I managed to track her down last year. She said sorry, but she wasn’t cut out to be a mother and getting married was the worst mistake she ever made. She never should have done it and she never did again after she left.” He snorted. “Maybe she should have figured that out
before she bothered doing it the first time. It would have been a hell of a lot better on my dad and me if she had. The same way it would be for the guy you’re supposed to be marrying if you end it now.”

“If that’s how you feel, I’m surprised you wanted to work around weddings and brides,” Adam said coolly. “Maybe you’d be happier working somewhere else.”

Zack shrugged a shoulder. “You’re
right about that. Go ahead and fire me. Just do me a favor and fire my dad, too. The only reason I came back here was to convince him to stop hiding on this damned mountain and get out of here. He needs to start living, not let his life be ruined by somebody who isn’t worth it.” With one last scornful glance at Jillian, he turned and stormed off down the hall.

“What do you think?” Adam asked
softly when they were alone again. “Is he our killer?”

“He’s certainly angry. I just don’t know if he’d be that upfront with his contempt for me or Courtney, or his reasons why, if he is the killer.”

“He might be if he was completely out of control, the way the killer has to be.”

“Did he seem that unhinged to you?”

“No,” Adam admitted, not particularly happy about it. It would
be easier if he could believe Zack obviously was their killer. It would mean this nightmare was finally over, that Jillian was out of danger. But even when Zack was clearly angry, Adam hadn’t sensed any real danger or threat of violence from him.

“I’d been wondering what really happened to Ray’s wife,” Jillian said quietly. “Guess now I know.”

“If Zack was telling the truth.”

“True,”
Jillian agreed. “Though his story does make sense. It explains why he came back when he doesn’t really like the job and the librarian in town told me he always wanted to leave the area.”

“Well, he won’t have to worry about the job for long,” Adam said grimly.

Jillian glanced up at him. “So you’re going to fire him?”

“I don’t think I have much of a choice.”

“And Ray?”

He sighed. “I don’t know. It might be for the best, though I don’t know if it’s fair to him.”

Before Jillian could respond, the sound of approaching footsteps reached them. A few seconds later, Meredith stepped into the foyer.

As soon as she spotted them she came to an abrupt stop. “Oh,” she exhaled in surprise. “I was just coming to check on you, Jillian.”

Adam didn’t miss the way
her eyes slid between him and Jillian, a contemplative—and apprehensive—gleam in them. He doubted Zack had a chance to tell her that he’d found the two of them together. Could she sense something had changed between them, or did she just still have the same suspicions she’d had earlier?

“I’m sure the two of you have a lot of work to do,” Adam said. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to check on
a situation in the basement.”

Meredith’s eyebrows raised. “Everything all right?”

Fighting a twinge of guilt at keeping the truth from her, he worked up a smile. “Nothing to worry about from the sounds of it.”

He met Jillian’s eyes. She nodded shortly before turning toward Meredith. “Should we finally check out the ballroom?” she asked with a smile.

Adam watched them go for
a moment, fighting the unease rising in his gut. He wouldn’t be gone long, and they should be safe together. But as they disappeared from view, it took everything he had not to follow. The thought of anything happening to either one of them was unimaginable. He’d let Meredith be hurt far too much for one lifetime. And Jillian... He’d just found her.

He couldn’t let anything happen to either
one of them.

More importantly, he wasn’t going to.

* * *

D
INNER
WAS
EVEN
more uncomfortable than usual, tension lying thick and heavy over the dining room. At the head of the table, Adam sat as grim and remote as a statue, seemingly deep in thought. Even Meredith made no attempt at conversation, leaving the meal to pass in uneasy silence.

Jillian figured the storm was the main
reason for it. The dining room curtains were drawn tight, but they couldn’t completely block out the sound of the raging wind and the lash of the rain on the glass. The noises were loud in the relative quiet of the room, making it impossible to forget that nature was raging all around them.

Still, she had to wonder if that was the only reason, or if Zack had told anyone how he’d found her
and Adam together.

Rosie avoided looking at anyone as she served the meal, a heavy frown on her rounded face. But she’d been the same way that morning when Jillian had seen her at breakfast, her mood edgy and distracted, so Jillian didn’t know if she could read anything new into the woman’s behavior.

As for Grace...

Even as she thought it, Jillian suddenly sensed someone was watching
her.

She looked up and met Grace’s eyes.

It wasn’t the first time Jillian had caught the woman looking at her. Grace’s cool gaze was steady and appraising, her face as stoic as ever. After a moment, she slowly lowered her attention back to her plate.

But not before Jillian caught the subtle change in her expression, the knowing gleam in her eye.

A sudden chill rolled through
her from both the knowledge and the look she’d seen in the woman’s stare.

She knows.

It was all Jillian could do not to reflexively reach out and straighten her clothes further, fully aware it would only make things look worse. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind Grace knew about her and Adam. And if Zack had told Grace, it was likely he’d told Rosie, too, and it was only a matter of time
before Ray and Ed found out, too, if they hadn’t already.

Which left the question of what the killer would think—or do.

“Mr. Sutton.”

The voice was like a clap of thunder in the stillness, nearly making Jillian flinch. Everyone in the room turned toward the sound.

Ed stood in the doorway, water dripping from his clothes, his normally smiling face even more serious than the
last time Jillian had seen him.

“Ed?” Adam said, already pushing away from the table. “What happened?”

“I was checking the upper floors in the west wing. We’ve got a tree down. It busted straight through a window in one of the back bedrooms on the second floor. I tried dislodging it, but it’s pretty well stuck. The rain’s coming straight in, and it’s hard to tell, but I think the tree
might have done some damage to the wall.”

His face grim with purpose, Adam moved to join the man. “Where are Ray and Zack?”

“I don’t know. I’m looking for them, too.”

Grace rose from her seat. “I’ll help find them.”

“Thanks, Grace,” Adam said. “Please send them up when you do. I’m going to head up with Ed to see how bad it is.”

With a nod, Grace moved toward the kitchen.

“Is there anything I can do?” Meredith asked.

“No,” Adam said. “You and Jillian stay here. We can take care of it.”

“I can help, too,” Jillian suggested.

“No,” he said, a little sharper than necessary. “Just stay here with Meredith.”

Jillian didn’t take offense at his tone, reading the warning in his stare too clearly. She understood. In the middle of a chaotic situation,
with everyone dealing with the mess and both of them distracted, it might be too easy for somebody to try to do something to her. She couldn’t exactly be on her guard if she was focused on trying to help, and she wouldn’t be much help if she was trying to watch her back at the same time. She was better off staying with Meredith, where she’d ostensibly be safer.

“All right,” she murmured.

She didn’t miss the flash of relief that briefly passed over his face. She waited, expecting him to turn and leave. He paused, and she sensed his sudden reluctance to go, his eyes sending her an unmistakable message.

Be careful,
they seemed to say.

Jillian gave a tiny, barely perceptible nod.
I will.

A heartbeat later, he turned back to the other man. “Okay, Ed. Show me where
it is.”

The two men quickly made their way out of the room. Jillian watched Adam go, her heart feeling uncommonly heavy in her chest. It was a strange feeling having someone looking out for her. She was so used to being on her own, she couldn’t remember the last time someone had looked at her with any concern that was more than mere politeness.

There was nothing polite about the worry
in Adam’s eyes. He genuinely cared about her well-being. Jillian understood the feeling. Even though she knew he wasn’t really facing a dangerous situation, she couldn’t deny the flicker of unease that struck low in her belly as he disappeared from view.

“I’m sure they can handle it, especially with Ray and Zack to help,” Meredith said, perhaps misreading the worry on Jillian’s face. “Why
don’t we go into the living room? We can talk about ideas on how to use the outdoor space.”

Jillian forced a smile. “Great.”

As they prepared to leave the room, she did her best to put Adam out of her mind. He had a job to do, but so did she. Solving Courtney’s murder.

That was what she needed to focus on.

* * *

O
NE
GLIMPSE
IN
the room Ed had led him to was all it took
for Adam to see the situation was even worse than he’d imagined. The tree was massive, practically filling the entire space of what had once been a sizable window, a mess of branches and leaves jutting several feet into the room. Adam didn’t doubt that an object that huge must have done some damage to the wall beneath the window when it had crashed into it, though it was hard to tell how bad it was
with the tree in the way. Rain seemed to pour in through every spot that wasn’t taken up by the tree, water drenching the floor and spraying across the room. Beyond it, the sky was so dark it might as well have been the dead of night.

“Damn,” Adam muttered under his breath.

The word was nearly lost in the wind that rushed into the room and lashed at them. Ed clearly heard it just the
same, grunting in response. “Yep.”

“What do you recommend?” Adam asked, fully prepared to rely on the man’s expertise.

Ed eyed the tree solemnly, his cheek working as he considered the problem. “It’s too big and too heavy to push out. I already tried that. We’ll probably have to take a look from outside, cut it out there so we can push it out. Maybe break off as many of the branches
in here as we can so it’ll be easier to move, too.”

“Then it’s just a matter of the window and the wall.”

Ed waved off the comment. “I can handle that. Getting this thing out of here is my main concern.”

The sound of feet pounding down the hall reached them. Adam glanced back just as Ray and Zack appeared in the doorway.

The two men came to an abrupt stop just inside the room,
staring in disbelief at the sight that met their eyes. Zack swore lightly.

“As you can see, we have quite a job to deal with,” Adam told them. “I hate to ask it of you, but I think I’m going to need you outside on this.” He quickly explained the plan Ed had outlined. “If we work together both inside and out, we should be able to get the tree out of here.”

“Makes sense,” Ray said simply,
with no trace of rancor. “And taking care of the trees is my job.”

“Good,” Adam said. “I’ll come with you. With the three of us working, we should be able to get the tree cut and possibly pulled out. Ed will stay here to break off the branches and prepare to deal with the window as soon as the tree’s out.” He paused, a thought occurring to him. “We’ll need to keep in contact on both ends.
Do you all have phones on you?”