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Abby forced herself to smile pleasantly. She wasn’t going to let him ruin her calm existence or cause speculation and gossip about her.
“Thank you, Jessie. If you’ll all excuse me, I have some housekeeping chores to take care of,” Abby said. Then she turned to move toward her office again, holding her head high, retreating in as dignified a manner as she could manage.
Colin’s mind reeled. She was going off to what? Make beds and dust? What had happened to the rich daddy’s girl he’d once known?
He shook his head. He shouldn’t care.
Colin looked back down at his half-eaten breakfast, too agitated to finish. All through his meal, helplessly unable to look away, he’d watched Abby as she’d chatted with her other guests. The conclusion he’d reached was that though he didn’t want to be, he was still as attracted to Abby Hopewell as he’d been years ago. And that made him feel unsettled, uncomfortable and just plain stupid.
He gave up on breakfast and hustled Jessie out to the pickup. Once he had them both belted in, he pulled the bottle of antacids out of the glove box and ate a handful, damning Abby for causing the familiar pain in his belly to blossom once again.
Then he looked back up at the Victorian he hadn’t yet seen in the light of day. It was perfect.
Every period detail was right on the money. Even the porch furniture was a trip back in time.
All of which meant Abby was probably the only woman he’d ever met who would understand his love for restoration and his obsession with historical accuracy.
At that moment Jessie squealed and bounced up and down in her seat. “Look at all the plants, Daddy. And what’s those bunch of houses over there?”
“I noticed them last night, but I don’t think they’re houses. One of the people at breakfast said something about visiting the Hopewell’s winery. And those plants are grape vines.”
“There sure are lots of them and that wine-ry is real pretty. Not as special as Abby’s Castle but it’s pretty.”
“It’s call Cliff Walk, kitten, not Abby’s Castle,” Colin told his starry-eyed daughter.
“I still think it’s her castle. She even lives in the tower just like Rapunzel. Maybe that’s her town over there, Daddy,” Jessie speculated, her mind hopping subjects again.
Colin looked back at the B and B and noticed Abby staring out a window at them—her expression frozen in sadness. “I want to find out what it’s all about,” he said, his mind occupied with questions other than Jessie’s.
“They look a little like our old house but different, too,” Jessie went on, sounding as confused as he felt.
He mentally shook himself. Their home had had Spanish influences, like so many others in Southern California. This was subtly different. In the light of day he saw it was definitely Tuscan.
“Actually I think this is Italian. It looks like a village I visited in Italy when I was in the army. That’s where Mrs. Hopewell is from.”
Jessie’s smooth brow puckered with deep thought. “There’s so many new peoples here. Who Mrs. Hopewell is, Daddy?”
Colin smiled. “That would be Abby’s mom. Let’s go exploring before we head over to the house.” Maybe he’d get some questions answered from the queen mother.
“Am I still gonna have to stay in the living room and on the porch when we get to Torthúil?”
“It’s no different than usual when I start on a house. Till I get the place inspected, and find out for sure where you’re safe, you stay put in the rooms I’ve checked out.”
“But we don’t have the trailer no more. You said this time—”
“I was wrong, partner. Daddies can make mistakes.” And wasn’t that an understatement, considering who owned the house where they were staying and the mess the one he owned was in. “It’s been years since I was here,” he continued as they drew closer to the little Hopewell village that made him feel as if they’d stepped right into the pages of a tour book on Tuscany. “I guess I remembered Torthúil the way it was when I left.”
She gave him a long-suffering sigh. “Then let’s go ’sploring. It’s better than not doin’ nothin’ at Torthúil. Why Gram didn’t fix the roof when it got old?”
“No one’s lived in it for years. A small farm like Gram’s in Florida doesn’t make enough money to survive down there and fix up a house she doesn’t live in up here. Nobody who saw the house told me we needed a new roof or I’d have gotten it fixed. I wish they had but—”
“Look at that big doggie!” Jessie shrieked in his ear. “Isn’t he won’erful?”
Big? He was massive. The Hopewells had a dog? A big dog? Things certainly had changed. “You sure it’s a dog, kitten? Looks more like a horse to me.”
Jessie giggled, strained to sit taller the closer he drove so she could still see the leaping canine monster. Colin parked in the crushed-granite parking lot labeled Visitor Parking, then unbuckled Jessie from her booster seat behind him. He swung her in front of him where she usually took the opportunity to grab the wheel to pretend driving. Today the dog took all her attention, leaping around like a goat as he chased a ball thrown by a tall blond boy who looked about nine or ten.
Colin decided that no matter how affectionate the dog seemed, he wasn’t putting Jessie down to get trampled. But he needn’t have worried about the animal jumping on her or knocking her down. Instead he galloped over and all but fell at Colin’s feet, presenting his belly for scratching. The boy followed and obliged his pet.
“Can I pet him?” Jessie gazed at Colin with pleading eyes. At that moment he silently promised to get her the puppy she’d been asking for since she turned three.
“Sure you can pet him,” the blond boy said. “You could probably use him for a pillow. I do all the time.”
Carefully and slowly, Colin eased Jessie to the ground. All the big dog did was let his tongue loll out of his mouth and pant harder as Jessie none too gently moved her hand over his belly. Then he put his head back and moaned in ecstacy.
Jessie giggled. “He’s funny.”
“My dad calls him a character,” the boy said. “My uncle Nic bought him for me the day they brought my new baby cousin home to Hopewell Manor from the hospital.”
“Actually, if you remember, Uncle Nic bought him for your cousin,” a woman said from behind them. “Lucky for you Thunder’s a little too big for a premature newborn.”
“I never thought I’d see the day dogs were allowed at Hopewell Manor,” Colin remarked absently, waiting for Juliana Hopewell to recognize him.
She walked out the door of the nearby building and cocked her head, her eyes narrowed as if in thought. He was ready for another hard-as-emerald stare when she realized who he was, but instead her green eyes lit with delight. “Colin McCarthy? My Lord, but you remind me of Tracy. And actually Thunder only visits the manor. This is Jamie. He’s Caroline’s son. They live in a house they built toward the back of the winery property.
“The baby Thunder was originally bought for is Sammie’s. Nikki was just barely five pounds the day she came home. Her father was rushing his fences a bit and overjoyed at finally getting her home.” She chuckled. “So, besides having a lovely little girl of your own, how are you, Colin? And what are you doing back here after so many years?”
Apparently James Hopewell hadn’t shared with his wife what had happened between Colin and Abby. Well, he wouldn’t be rude to Juliana when she obviously hadn’t had anything to do with what her husband had done. Besides, from what he’d heard, she’d been on the receiving end of Hopewell’s cruelty herself.
“I came back to live at Torthúil, but the house is in much worse shape than I’d thought it would be. Jessie and I are staying at Cliff Walk until I can renovate it. We arrived in the middle of the storm last night. It was pretty dark so I didn’t get to see everything you’ve done here.” He made a sweeping gesture toward what he could now see was indeed a replica of a Tuscan town square surrounded by four buildings. They were laid out like four sides of a pentagon, leaving the square and the fifth side open to a view of the vines that terraced down the hillside toward the cliffs.
“The girls and I started all this after their father died. This building is the headquarters of Hopewell Winery.” She pointed left. “That one is the winery itself. It houses the gift shop, tasting room and some of the machinery. We had the wine cellars blasted into the rock and they’re below us. And this building and the one at the far end of the court is Bella Villa. It’s a banquet facility. There are three halls between the two buildings and our offices.”
“I hadn’t heard about any of this. I was also surprised to find Abby at Cliff Walk last night.”
“Oh,” she said, sounding somewhat distressed. “I’d better make sure she’s all right. You know, Tracy’s death devastated her, even though they’d drifted apart that last summer. Seeing you probably brought it all up for her again. I imagine coming home for the first time since then did the same for you. That was terribly mean of your commander not to let you come home for your own sister’s funeral.” She reached out and took his hand. “I am so sorry for your losses. I know you and Tracy were close. And we heard about your father’s death when Erin stayed here in May.”
She frowned. “Was Abby very upset when she saw you again?”
“I suppose she was,” Colin said carefully, his mind whirling once again. Abby and Tracy hadn’t been close that summer? They’d practically been sisters for years. What could have happened between them? He wished now that he hadn’t told his parents he never wanted to hear Abby’s name again. And he wished they hadn’t listened.
“She did take your sister’s death so hard. After that, and my divorce from her father, Abby was never really the same.” Juliana looked over toward Cliff Walk, then blinked, seeming to realize that perhaps she’d said too much. She cleared her throat as if to punctuate a change in subject. “So, how about the two-dollar tour? If we’re going to be neighbors again, you should know what’s going on up here on the plateau.”
Juliana Hopewell had no idea how much Colin wanted to figure out exactly what was going on. And what had gone on in his absence. “I think I’ll take you up on that.
“Jessie,” he called, noticing the boy and his dog had led his daughter farther away than he was comfortable with. They were going toward the middle of the plateau, where all the Hopewell enterprises sat, and he remembered the cliffs that led down from there. He and his buddies had even climbed them in their daredevil teens. And Jessie tended to be more of a daredevil than he’d ever been at her age. No way did he want her finding out about those rocky cliffs.
When she arrived back at his side, Colin took her hand. “Mrs. Hopewell said she’d take us to see all the buildings.”
Jessie frowned up at him. “Can’t I stay and play with the doggie?”
“Jamie, you come, too,” Juliana called to her grandson. “Thunder can be along for part of the tour,” Juliana told the boy. Then she turned back to Colin and explained, “I’m designated sitter for the next two hours. Oh, by the way, if you’re planning on a dog, I’d like to recommend the shelter in Hopetown.”
“An animal shelter? Isn’t that a little out of character for Hopetown? Last I remember, the good citizens would rather drown a mutt than house it till it was adopted.”
Juliana Hopewell arched on elegant eyebrow. She was a beautiful woman even as she must be nearing her fifties. “Maybe the Hopetown of ten years ago, but a lot has changed around here in the last several years. You’ll see.” She turned away, gestured to the grapevines growing in terraced rows and started what he imagined was a routine tour. “We started with fifty-three thousand young plants cloned from the finest European stock. The family buried each plant in winter for…”
Colin, both children and the dog followed her inside the winery. And within minutes, Jessie was as enthralled as he was with the big kettles and presses and stack after stack of barrels in the cellar. He was pleasantly surprised by the few sips of the wines he tried. Hopewell produced a top-shelf product. He enjoyed the tour especially because James Hopewell was probably spinning in his grave. His ex-wife and daughters had lent his prestigious family name to several establishments he’d have considered beneath him.
Juliana was CEO of all three family-owned businesses. Caroline Hopewell Westerly was CFO of the winery and Bella Villa. Samantha was in charge of the farming and the winery operations, which really would have frosted her father. And Abby was entirely in charge of Cliff Walk and was also PR director for all the Hopewell enterprises.
After the tour, Colin spent the rest of the day at Torthùil, tearing out the destroyed plaster ceilings and walls and cataloguing the changes he planned to make. He did everything with an eye toward preserving the hundred-and-fifty-year tradition of the classic colonial farmhouse built by Liam McCarthy, an ancestor back in the 1860s for whom his father had been named.
But hard labor couldn’t keep questions about Abby from his mind. He remembered the adventurous, happy girl he’d fished out of the river who’d become fast friends with his sister. She’d been impulsive and mischievous, yet generous and good-hearted. Then he’d come home for Christmas six months after joining the army to find a new Abby. She was still the coltish teen he’d left behind, but she was quieter and more reserved than he’d remembered. Then he’d gone home for Tracy’s graduation and found Abby had turned into a siren who’d all but forced him to dance with her at the graduation party his parents had thrown for both girls. It was later that night that his barriers had fallen and he’d let her pull him in with her sensual innocence, trapping his mind and heart.
And then there was now. She was uptight, prissy and cold. But, that said, there was also a bit of the old Abby in the way she treated Jessie. It was probably just her good business sense, he told himself. As long as she catered to Jessie, the other guests would approve, preserving their good image of Cliff Walk and its proprietor.
He’d gone looking for answers and had only come up with more questions about the past—and more problems with the present. What had happened between Abby and Tracy? And if she and Abby had no longer been friends, then that meant Abby had had no part in his sister’s death.
Colin didn’t know where today’s glimpse into those months between his departure and Tracy’s death left him, but one thing was clear.
He needed answers.
And once he had them, Colin wasn’t sure he’d like them.
Not one little bit.
Chapter Four
Abby spent the evening and all the next day trying to avoid Colin at every turn.
She was too busy to waste time worrying about the past and the particularly annoying customer in her present. That’s all Colin was.
She had to focus—she was planning to attend a meeting at the town hall that night, and she was anxious to see Harley Bryant’s reaction to her now that she was officially on the ballot to run against him in November’s mayoral election.
As dinner approached, Abby changed into a light summer suit and pinned her hair up in the no-nonsense style appropriate for tonight’s meeting of the zoning commission. As a candidate for the mayor of Hopetown, she needed to project a serious and businesslike image. She’d never have run for public office, but Harley Bryant had to be ousted before he ran Hopetown into the ground. More than once Harley had shamelessly used his position as mayor to further his own agenda, one that seemed to include destroying everything her mother and sisters had worked to build. She’d more or less been drafted by the chamber of commerce and other concerned citizens, and initially she’d felt she had no choice but to run for the office. But now she wanted to beat him. She wanted him contained and silenced so that his wheeling and dealing could only hurt those who chose to do business with Bryant Savings and Loan, his family business.
To get into town, Abby planned to borrow the little Mercedes she and her mother shared. Abby knew she had some time before Juliana arrived with the car. She’d dropped her mother off at the manor, then zip down the winding road into Hopetown. Anxious to be on her way, she settled into one of the big wicker rockers on the porch to wait.
It was only a routine meeting tonight and since she was well prepared, Abby let her mind wander as she stared out over the terraces of ripening vines. Before she knew it, her mind veered to thoughts of Colin. Then the porch squeaked behind her.
Startled by the intrusion, Abby turned. As if conjured by her thoughts, he stood just outside the front door. From the look of surprise on his handsome face, she was sure he was just as unprepared as she was to find themselves alone together.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said.
“Why not? I told you I live here,” she replied, recovering quickly despite her racing heart.
A smirk crossed his features. “That’s what I hear, but you couldn’t prove it by how scarce the Snow White sightings have been. Jessie’s going to drive me crazy asking where you are. Are you hiding from us, Miss Abby?”
Abby stood, her lips clamped together to keep herself from answering truthfully that she was hiding from him. As she tried to walk away, he put a hand on her arm to stop her retreat. Her racing heart now thundered at his touch. Pointedly, Abby looked down at his hand, then defiantly back up at him.
Her gaze locked with his. He stared. She stared. Unable to look away, she nearly sighed in relief when a piping voice said joyously, “Miss Abby! You’re here! Daddy found you.”
Colin blinked and dropped his hand from her arm as if burned. “She’s here. We were just talking about old times,” he lied—but not very smoothly. His voice sounded rough, as though his throat was dry. He coughed a little then went on, “Abby wasn’t so hard to find when I lived around here before. In fact, our family couldn’t seem to get rid of her. She was always around because she was your Aunt Tracy’s best friend.”
“Aunt Tracy’s the one who got dead, right?”
“Yes.” He coughed again, clearly fighting emotion. “When she was eighteen,” he amended. From the thin line of his lips and the angry flare in his eyes, Abby guessed he’d remembered not just Tracy’s death but his inability to attend the funeral.
Well, she carried a lot of anger about Tracy’s death too—but it was directed at Colin. If Tracy had still been her friend, she would have listened to the truth about Kiel Laughlin when Abby tried to tell her. Tracy had had one huge fault—money. Feeling the lack of it, and desperately wanting it. She’d seen Abby’s mother’s life as a fairy tale come true. And she’d thought Kiel was her Prince Charming.
But Kiel was spoiled and reckless. One day while Tracy stood on the bow of his father’s boat, Kiel took his eyes off the river to take another swig of his beer. He ran them aground at high rate of speed and Tracy broke her neck when she flew off and landed in the shallow water. He’d been charged with manslaughter. There hadn’t been any witnesses on the shore, though, and the one witness against him had changed her story at the last minute. Everyone else on the boat had always claimed to have been looking the other way. With no evidence, Kiel had been found not guilty.
Tracy had been with Kiel for one reason—to capture him and his wealth. She hadn’t understood that the real treasure was a marriage like Tracy’s parents had shared. No matter the lack of material goods, the McCarthys’ marriage had been one made in heaven.
No so with the Hopewells. Abby’s mother had found wealth when she wed her husband but within months of Tracy’s death, the marriage dissolved.
It was only after ending her last attempt at a relationship that Abby had come to understand that she had to put the lessons of that painful summer to work in her own life. She would never again let a man get close to her. She was impulsive and had a passionate nature that would surely lead her to heartbreak again and again. Abby knew what a dangerous combination those could be just by looking at the mess her father had made of all their lives.
James Hopewell had gone on a tour of Europe after graduation from college. While in Tuscany he’d met Juliana and was swept away by passion for the seventeen-year-old daughter of a local vintner. He’d married her in spite of her father’s objections, then he’d brought his young wife home, where he’d found his own parents no less displeased by the union.
Years later he’d once again impulsively succumbed to his craving for passion and he’d betrayed Juliana. It was only months after Abby’s own debacle with Colin, and Tracy’s death, that her mother discovered James in the arms of another woman. Then her oldest sister’s heart had been broken when her fiancé called off their engagement because of the scandal surrounding the family.
Lesson learned.
That was why Abby had spent these past years studiously hiding behind a carefully built wall of self-discipline and self-denial. She couldn’t trust her own judgment. Not where men—and certainly not love— were concerned.
And she never would.
“…so after that,” Abby heard Colin saying, seemingly from a distance, “when you saw my sister, Tracy, you nearly always saw Abby Hopewell.”
Abby winced as memories and emotions flooded her thoughts. The pain of Tracy’s death had never really dulled as Abby had been promised it would. Much as she blamed Colin for somehow causing the rift between them, she blamed herself just as much for giving Tracy a craving for the kinds of things only money could buy.
Abby shook off the painful memories. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to meet my mother,” she lied, and fled down the porch steps. She’d wait for Juliana over at the winery even if she broke her neck stomping along the cracked-stone driveway in her high heels.
As she entered the town hall at exactly two minutes to seven, Abby looked around for her core group of lovable troublemakers. Sure enough, they were all there, seated down front and ready for action. Jean Anne, co-owner of the Hopetown Hotel and the Blue Moon Restaurant and Bar, turned around and waved to the seat they’d saved her. Jerry, Jean Anne’s husband, wasn’t there—probably the one home minding the kids and the hotel. As Abby strode down the center aisle, Harry Clark, owner of a local biker boutique, stood and turned toward her. Deep frown lines wrinkled his forehead. Harry looked like the kind of man you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley—or even mess with in broad daylight—but he was a pussycat.
“What’s up?” she asked, seeing that even Muriel Haversham seemed disturbed.
Muriel was the owner of Seek and Find, one of the many antique stores that dotted the town. She was usually unflappable and sunny. She didn’t look a bit sunny tonight. “Harley’s changed the agenda—tabled the federal grant discussion.”
Abby frowned. “What could be more important than getting federal help to solve the town’s flooding problem? Is he waiting for a fourth flood? Three in the last eighteen months isn’t enough?”
Harry waved the agenda. She stooped down and picked a copy off the chair she was apparently meant to occupy. “It just says development.”
“I don’t like the mystery,” Harry grumbled. “He’s probably trying to use tonight as a platform for his reelection. He’ll probably start trying to blame the Hopewell complex for the flooding again.”
“Don’t worry,” she promised. “I’m not about to let Harley Bryant get away with any posturing or diversionary tactics. When they did the perk test to check for our drainage it proved nothing runs off that plateau.”
