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When she leaned back, though, the sofa suddenly hissed and writhed beneath her. She leaped to her feet, startled beyond speech. A very large reddish-brown cat—so like the color of the sofa that she hadn’t even seen it—was huffily rearranging himself, angry at the disruption but too lazy to get out of the way.
Clay laughed and, reaching over, dumped the fat, furry feline unceremoniously onto the floor. “Get lost, Fudge. You’re in the way.”
“Damn cat,” the parrot complained from his perch. “Useless beast.”
Melanie stared from Copernicus to the cat, then turned her bewildered gaze to Clay. She finally found her voice. “Is that yours?”
Clay shook his head, patting the now-empty spot, encouraging her to take her seat again. “Good Lord, no. That lazy feline belonged to your uncle.”
“Joshua had a cat?” Melanie tried to picture it. For years, she and Nick had begged their uncle for a pet, but he’d always refused. Too much hair, too much trouble. And now—this? “My uncle hated cats. He never had a cat in his life.”
“I gave this one to him a year ago,” Clay said mildly.
“Fudge shared tuna sandwiches with him, ate them right off his plate.” He eyed her speculatively. “You’ve been gone a long time, you know. A lot can change in eight years.”
“Obviously.” She sank onto the sofa, a little dizzy suddenly, slightly disoriented. She felt like the blindfolded player in that old children’s game, twirled first this way and that until she had no idea which way she was facing.
It had been a mistake to come here. She should have waited until Monday, when she could have met Clay in his office. This place had too many memories, too much emotional residue. Right now, her thoughts were so off balanced that she wondered if she could even find the words to state her case.
“I think I’d better just come straight to the point,” she said, her voice hardly as steady as it should be. “Nick is at a ball game with a friend, but they’ll be back soon.”
“Okay,” he said, settling comfortably against the sofa.
“I’m listening.”
“Okay,” she echoed. Her voice sounded hollow in her ears.
“As you may have guessed, I want to talk to you about Joshua’s will. I…well, I wanted you to know that, in spite of what my uncle may have told you about me, I really am not a crazy teenager anymore. I’m twenty-four. I work. I live a perfectly sensible, even frugal…”
She hesitated. His gaze was curious, polite, but somehow unnerving. This was going to be much harder than she had anticipated. And perhaps, though these were the words she’d practiced in front of the mirror, she was going at it all wrong. Even she could hear that she still sounded angry, defensive.
She started over. “I want my inheritance, Clay. I believe I deserve it, and I’m willing to do whatever is necessary to convince you of that. Anything you need—credit reports, bank accounts, work references—I’m prepared to make it all available to you.”
He raised his brows. “This is a fairly dramatic turnaround, isn’t it? May I ask what happened to change your mind so completely?”
She flushed. “I’ve already admitted I overreacted. I’ve given this a lot of thought since that afternoon. In fact, I’ve thought of almost nothing else. I’ve realized that I have nothing to hide, nothing to fear from an inspection of my finances or my lifestyle.” She tried to smile. “You just reminded me that a lot can change in eight years. You’re right. Perhaps my uncle changed—I don’t know. But I do know that I changed, a lot. In fact, if you’ll give me a fair chance, you’ll discover that I’m a very different person from the headstrong girl my uncle remembered.”
That much was certainly true, she thought, aware of how bitter the words tasted in her mouth. The old Melanie could never have spoken such conciliatory sentences, not for a hundred million dollars. Even now, if it wasn’t for Nick, she might happily have suggested that Mr. Clay Logan take the damn Romeo Ruby and—
“I’d like nothing better than to discover just that,” he said. She had to admit he handled his victory well—his smile wasn’t the least big smug. “I believe Joshua wanted you to have his estate if you were ready to handle it. It would please me to be able to turn it over to you.” He leaned forward. “I’ll have my secretary send you a list of everything I’ll need first thing Monday morning. We can get started right away.”
But she didn’t stand. She couldn’t allow him to dismiss her—not yet. Her needs were more urgent than she had let on.
“How long do you think it will take?” she asked, trying to sound calm, unharried. “I mean, for you to complete your…evaluation and make a decision?”
He frowned. “I don’t know. It depends on what I find. As you know, the will stipulates that you have twelve months in which to prove that you should inherit. I can’t imagine that it could possibly take that long.” He tilted his head, studying her face. “Why—is there some urgency?”
“Yes,” she said uncomfortably, plucking at the buttons that quilted the leather of the sofa. “You see, I really need to move—to get out of the house I’m in.”
“Are you behind in your payments?”
She colored again. “No, no, of course not. I don’t get ‘behind’ in my payments. It’s just that I need to get into a better neighborhood—a safer neighborhood. I’ll sell my house, of course, but I’m afraid that will take too long. We need to move very soon.”
Uh-oh. She was babbling, not outlining the measured logic of a sensible young woman. This wasn’t how it had sounded in front of the mirror. But then, the mirror hadn’t given her that skeptical look.
“Right now? What’s the rush?”
“It’s Nick,” she said miserably. Clay’s eyes changed. Of course it was Nick, his disappointed gaze said. But she refused to let herself get defensive. “It’s just that I’m afraid he’s falling in with a bad crowd.”
Clay leaned back, raising one brow. “If you think you can find a neighborhood that’s immune to ‘bad crowds’, I’m afraid you’re searching for an Eden that doesn’t exist.”
Suddenly Melanie felt something warm and furry against her calf. Fudge apparently wanted to make friends. She dropped her hand onto his silky fur and softly scratched. At least it allowed her to avoid Clay’s too-perceptive eyes.
“I know, but…well, Nick’s given up his old friends from school. Our circumstances are rather limited, as you may already know, so he just doesn’t feel like one of them anymore. It’s destroyed his self-esteem.”
“What has? Not being rich? The boy can’t respect himself just because he no longer lives at Cartouche Court? Didn’t he know that, when he left your uncle’s custody, he left the goodies behind, too? The status address, weekly allowance, the credit lines at all the best stores…”
She flushed. “You make it sound like the worst kind of snobbery.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No, it isn’t.” She heard herself getting angry, but she couldn’t help it. “You don’t understand. You don’t realize how tough a private boys’ school can be. The students are—well, it’s ruthless if you can’t keep up.”
“On the contrary,” he said, “I know exactly what it’s like.” Clay gave her another of those wry smiles. “I went to a private school, too. Four long years as a scholarship student. It’s no fun, but it’s survivable.”
She stared at him, finding the concept strangely jarring. She tried to picture Clay Logan at fourteen or fifteen. Even harder, she tried to picture him ever feeling at a disadvantage. Was it possible that this man had ever been racked with insecurity, rejected by the rich boys, forced to seek companionship with near delinquents?
No. It was not possible—he had too much inner strength. Granted, she didn’t know him very well, but his personal pride was evident in the way he carried himself. The perfect square of his shoulders, the firm set of his angular jaw, the nononsense expression in his intelligent eyes, were all the proof she needed. If Clay Logan had been shunned because he possessed more brains than bank account, he would simply have pitied his critics and comfortably spent the four years alone.
So how could she admit to him that Nick wasn’t made of such stern stuff? That Nick’s ego was fragile, his self-image built on all the wrong things. Did she dare say she blamed her uncle for that, too?
“I’m sure Nick’s hurting,” Clay went on. “And I’m sorry for it. But leaving Joshua was Nick’s own idea. He didn’t like the restrictions Joshua placed on him—and he hoped you would be a more lenient guardian. It’s really no surprise, is it, that there was a price to pay for his freedom? There usually is.”
“Yes, but the price is too high!” She pressed her fingertips together tightly, holding her emotion in with every muscle.
“He’s taken up with some new kids, kids from our neighborhood. These boys are much tougher than he is. He…” She hoped she wouldn’t fall apart, thinking of how Nick had looked at the police station, so young, so frightened. “He follows their lead. This week, they were caught spray-painting city hall.”
Clay’s brows pulled together in distaste. “Then the problem is in Nick, Melanie. Not in your address.”
Frustration pressed like a fist on her chest. “I understand what you’re saying. He should be stronger, I know. But I have to deal with Nick as he is, not as he ought to be.”
His face was implacable, and suddenly she realized she was just plain tired of begging—it was so at odds with her natural temperament. She had done all she could. If Clay couldn’t feel any sympathy for Nick, then she would have to find another way.
She stood jerkily, feeling like a fool. She had abased herself for nothing. “I apologize for wasting your time,” she said coolly. “I had hoped that perhaps you could expedite this…this cute little trial my uncle cooked up. If you won’t, you won’t I don’t need to bore you with all the details of our personal problems.”
Clay rested his head on the heel of his hand, still relaxed in spite of her tension.
“You’re flying off the handle again,” he pointed out.
“No, I’m just late getting home. Thanks again for—”
“If you really feel that Nick is in danger where you are,” he broke in calmly, “why not move back into Cartouche Court?” He smiled at her horrified expression. “I’m serious, Melanie. Why not? Joshua’s will specifically stipulates that you may live here, rent free, during the twelve-month evaluation period. Why not take advantage of his offer? Why not come home?”
Why not? A hundred thousand memories, all of them unhappy, that was why not. She looked helplessly around the library, half-expecting to see her uncle lurking in the dark corners. But the clouds had passed over—the shadows now were honey-colored.
“Come home?” she repeated hollowly. Was this home?
“Come home,” Copernicus ordered in a fierce voice that was eerily like her uncle’s. “Come home, damn it.”
It was obviously unanimous. Even Fudge wrapped himself around her ankle, purring. She stared numbly down at the cat, wondering why she was even letting herself consider this insanity. She leaned down to pet him, stalling.
“Damn cat,” Copernicus said sullenly, ruffling his feathers irritably.
Clay had stood now, too, and was studying her closely. “Why don’t you at least give it some thought? It would be financially advantageous for you, and it might even, as you say, expedite the work you and I need to do together. Fewer faxes, no phone messages to go astray.” He sighed. “I could even get to know Nick better.”
Get to know Nick…? She realized suddenly, with a nervous tightening in her gut, what he meant. “Oh, that’s right. You…you live here now, don’t you?”
“Yes.” He grinned, and for the first time, in the brightening sunshine, she could see the gold flecks in his brown eyes. “But I’m staying in the guest house, in case you’re worried about appearances.”
“Well, I would have to be, wouldn’t I?” she said dryly. “Considering that my character and my judgment are now officially on trial.”
He laughed as if he thought she was quite witty, but she knew it was no more than the truth. She was the defendant, and Cartouche Court was to be her jail. And Clay Logan was prosecutor, jailer, judge and jury all in one deceptively charming package. She closed her eyes. The prisoner was in big, big trouble.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_f896d600-7be4-5f78-a79f-71a89bb2aeb7)
IT WAS the wrong side of midnight. As was his habit before retiring to the guest cottage for the night, Clay strolled quietly across the upstairs hall of Cartouche Court, his body slicing through the alternating stripes of blue moonlight and black shadow as he double-checked doors and windows.
The hall was like a long, straight saber, cleaving the mansion’s eight bedrooms into two sets of four. He peered into each one as he passed, assuring himself that all was in order. With so many workmen coming and going, it couldn’t hurt to be careful.
It was like taking a walk through time and space. Joshua had decorated the bedrooms to reflect different nations or eras, each using an antique map as inspiration. The Chinese bedroom, then the Irish, the Crusades, the Civil War, the St. Croix…The interior of Cartouche Court was as varied as history itself.
But silent, Clay thought, standing at the top of the stairs, scanning the emptiness. Some nameless disaster might have swept all living things from the face of the earth, leaving behind only hollow suits of armor, stopped clocks, beds that no one slept in, books that no one read.
Well, all that would change tomorrow when Melanie and her brother arrived. The transformation had, in fact, already begun.
He moved to the Chinese bedroom and knuckled the door open slightly. Over the past week, the room’s simple elegance had given way to a strangely delightful chaos as Melanie’s things had been sent ahead to await her arrival.
He flicked on the overhead light, wondering what new nonsense had been delivered today. On Monday she’d sent a dozen boxes, which now were stacked on the Oriental carpet. Each carton was labeled in black marker, and the careless scrawl was as impractical as Melanie herself. “Odds and Ends,” she’d written, or “Boring Papers.”
Her clothes had come on Wednesday. Two bulging suitcases and then a half-dozen dresses in soft, feminine prints, sent loose on hangers. They surged like flower-laden waves over the red-lacquered chest in the comer.
And here was today’s addition—a small, battered sound system, tangled wires and a handful of CDs littering the elegant trestle table from the ming dynasty. And on the carved rosewood tester bed, amid the richly embroidered pillows, a giant one-eyed teddy bear winked at Clay as if amused by his grand surroundings.
“She always was a messy one.”
Clay looked over his shoulder, not really surprised to see that Mrs. Hilliard was awake, still roaming the halls after midnight. Since Joshua’s death, the housekeeper had tended the old man’s estate with an almost obsessive care.
“Mrs. Hilliard,” he said, smiling, “we’ve got to stop meeting like this.”
She didn’t return his smile—she wasn’t much for grinning at the best of times—but he knew she liked him anyway. Her requirements were straightforward. She liked anyone who had been Joshua Browning’s friend.
Bustling past him into the room, the housekeeper swept the teddy bear off the bed and dropped it on top of the dresses. She flattened her brows into an ominous line. “Melanie never had a bit or respect for anything. Did I ever tell you how I caught her up in the hall here, bowling down ivory netsukes with a glass paperweight? A hundred years old, they were. Priceless.”
Clay chuckled. She’d told him the story at least three times this week.
“Honestly, that girl drove her uncle crazy.”
“I’ll bet she did,” he agreed, thinking of Joshua’s obsession with order and control. Even for a more relaxed personality, Melanie probably wouldn’t be a very soothing roommate—all that hot-blooded temper, all that restless, volatile energy. No, not soothing. But she might, he thought, be rather stimulating….
Whoa, boy. He jerked firmly on the reins of that thought. He mustn’t ever, ever allow himself to think of Melanie Browning that way. She was a client, not a woman. She barely qualified as one anyhow, with her enthusiasm for swordplay, her tomboy temper and her wide, innocent blue eyes that teared up as easily as a baby’s.
But then, like a fool, he thought of how she had looked in her knight’s tunic, all honeyed sunshine, silver sequins and incredible curves. Something deep in his gut tightened and warmed at the mental picture, instinct overruling intellect.
All right, so she was a woman, damn it. She still wasn’t his kind of woman. He’d been in love only once, right out of college, and Allison had been as different from Melanie Browning as ice was from fire. Ally had been the Grace Kelly type—calm, blond, polished and refined until she glowed like marble.
When she had died, only a month before their wedding, Clay had vowed he’d never look at a woman again. Needless to say, such wild, brokenhearted promises couldn’t be kept Now, ten years later, he looked—he even occasionally touched—but he always went for the same type. Blond, cool, collected. Would-be Allisons who would, of course, never be Allison.
But even if Melanie Browning had been Grace Kelly herself, she would have been off-limits to Clay. He could stand here till dawn listing all the ethical violations any fooling around with her would represent.
“And this young man who keeps bringing over her boxes,” Mrs. Hilliard was continuing as she circled the room, sniffing for new transgressions. “This Ted Martin. Who is he anyway? Why is a nice young man like that playing errand boy for her?”
“Ted Martin? I didn’t know about him,” Clay said, curious. “Boyfriend, perhaps?” He suddenly, intensely, hoped he was right If Melanie had a squeaky-clean fiancé at hand, it would solve all Clay’s problems at once. He could satisfy his conscience, turn over the inheritance and banish all pesky thoughts of curvaceous white knights forever.
“Boyfriend?” The housekeeper snorted. “Not hers, not on your life. Melanie’s taste always ran more to drummers and dropouts.”
Clay raised one brow. “She was only sixteen, remember,” he chided gently.
“She was old enough to know better.”
“Still, maybe you should cut her some slack,” he insisted.
He wasn’t going to let Mrs. H. destroy his dream of an easy resolution. A “nice young man” named Ted would be very helpful; an unemployed space cadet called Ringo would not. “Not many sixteen-year-old girls go around dating Nobel Prize winners.”
“Maybe not. But it’s one thing to flirt with one of those longhaired deadbeats when you’re sixteen.” Mrs. Hilliard switched off the light with a small huff. “It’s something else altogether to run off in the middle of the night and marry one.”
Was she doing the right thing?
Melanie had no idea whether she was about to salvage their lives or destroy them. For seven long days, her confidence had been under seige, and she had hardly slept, scarcely eaten. Doubts had raged through her mind like guerilla warriors, popping up whenever she relaxed, attacking whenever she let down her guard.
What if she was wrong? What if this whole move was folly? What if she took Nick back to Cartouche Court and then she couldn’t win her inheritance? Wouldn’t it be harder than ever for him to accept his fate? Or what if Clay had been right—that the problem was Nick, not their address? Would she have put them both through this for nothing? And would allowing Clay to live in close proximity to Nick really help anything?
Familiarity with Nick didn’t always breed respect, at least not these days.
But when Melanie woke up on Saturday morning and loaded the last of their things into her car, she felt oddly excited. For some reason, the doubts this morning were almost inaudible, like a cry heard in the distance. Today she dared to hope.
Perhaps it Just was her nature to be foolishly optimistic. Or perhaps it was the day itself. As they drove, the air was sweet with the promise of summer, and the hills rolled by like mounds of emeralds. It was a magical morning, designed to sow hope in even the most barren heart.
As she turned into the lane that led to Cartouche Court, she caught her breath. But the magic held. Sunshine sparkled along the driveway like a yellow carpet strewn with topaz. Orchard orioles, hidden somewhere behind the pink blossoms of the crab apple tree, filled the air with explosive ripples of song. A pair of comical jays, apparently sent straight from Walt Disney’s central casting, cavorted in the front fountain, which splashed merrily over its marble tiers.
