“Are you?”
“Well, yeah. But I don’t know how Richard found out. I’ve been very careful.”
“Why do you want her to divorce him?”
“Because he’s a jerk.”
“What’s all the commotion?” Jesse asked, walking from the left wing of the house.
“Just a small misunderstanding,” Ben said. He turned Willa toward the guest wing and gave her a nudge.
“Go change. We’ll send Richard on his way. Come on, Jesse. Let’s go help Sam clean up.”
Willa silently walked to her bedroom as she heard the steel in Ben’s voice again. She’d gotten off easy that day in the boardroom. The Sinclair men were just as ruthless as Abram had alluded to. But they’d been courteous to her and guarded, curious, and compassionate. Ben had been a good host on their shopping expedition yesterday, and despite the gloom hanging over the house, Jesse actually had her laughing last night with stories of their boyhood antics. And other than that kiss two nights ago at the hotel, Sam had been a gentleman with her.
Sort of. Most of the time.
Willa saw now what Abram had tried to explain to her without outright saying it. All three of his grandsons wore a thin veneer of civility. Sometimes it slipped though, as it had when Sam thought Richard was attacking her.
She had learned two very important things this morning. One, Sam Sinclair was not a man she ever wanted mad at her. And two, he had a positively gorgeous chest.
“Abram Sinclair, you old poop. You promised to wait for me to get back.”
Sam stilled when he heard Willa’s voice. He was sitting in a high-backed chair pulled around to face the window, his feet propped on the windowsill. It was a dismal day of hard late-May rain. A fire had been set in the hearth, and two lights had been lit over Abram, who was lying peacefully in his own wondrous creation of solid cherry wood and forest-green flannel bedding. Sam had been sitting in quiet contemplation, the casket across the room at his back, and he was able to see the entire room reflected in the rain-soaked window. Willa had come in carrying a huge bouquet of spring flowers she’d filched from the garden; she was also carrying a rag and what he suspected was wood wax.
“We had a deal,” Willa continued. Sam watched in the window as she set down her flowers on a nearby table and walked up to Bram. “I promised to come here and do your dirty work, and you promised to let me be with you, come time. You tricked me, Abram. You planned it,” she accused. Willa slowly reached out and feathered her fingers over Bram’s cheek. Sam couldn’t see her face, but
he’d bet she was smiling and crying at the same time.
Her voice proved him right. “You look damn good, Abram. I bet you left instructions with the undertaker to give you that smile, didn’t you? Your grandsons are rascals,” she told the old man, touching Bram’s hair. “Right down to their arrogant smiles. Chips off your own block, aren’t they?
“I’m sorry you had to come home with Richard as your escort, but your grandsons sent him packing. You should have seen Sam this morning, Abram. He was magnificent. He actually rescued me.” She loosened Bram’s tie. “I’ve never been rescued before in my life.”
Sam had a pretty good idea that Willa didn’t realize Bram had begun rescuing her the moment they met. It must be Sinclair fate to slay Willa’s dragons—whatever they were. Sam knew she had them, and he knew Bram had recognized that fact immediately. He just wished his grandfather had left him a hint to exactly what they were.
Willa was dressed in worn jeans and an oversized sweatshirt this afternoon. Her hair was once again escaping its clip, waving in tendrils around her face, making her look like an angel who had come to help them through this time. Sam thanked God, and Abram, for her, as she was indeed making this easier—though he guessed she didn’t realize it.
“Your casket looks good,” she continued, opening the can of wax. “Except maybe that ship. I told you to let me transfer my sketch to the wood, instead of your trying to copy it freehand. Your cargo ship is listing, Abram.”
Sam silently chuckled to himself.
“I like your rose, though. You did a great job putting it on your foot cover. I can’t believe the inscription, though. You added that when I wasn’t watching.”
Sam heard Willa snort. “Been there. Done that. Had fun, ” she read aloud. “Hope to come back and do it again. ”
Sam held in his own chuckle. All three brothers had had a good laugh when they’d read Bram’s little epitaph. And not one of them would put it past the old man to come back and haunt them.
“If you do come back, Abram, it’ll likely be as a goat,” Willa scolded. “Just so you can keep butting into people’s business, like you have mine.”
She began polishing Bram’s casket, working industriously. “What could you have been thinking, sending me down here?” She stopped and pointed her rag at him. “Your grandsons are first-class rogues, Abram. And I don’t care if Sam’s kisses do curl my toes, either,” she hissed. Sam smiled. Curled her toes, had he?
“I’m on to you, Abram. You’ve got something up your sleeve, I can feel it. But I’m telling you right now, I’m not going to be part of whatever it is. And I don’t care what you think; I’m not ever getting married again. I can’t, and you know it. You said you understood.”
She was polishing the wood so hard Sam expected it to start smoking.
“I can’t ever have children,” she blurted. “I explained that to you. And you laughed at me,” she finished on a whisper, dropping her forehead onto Bram’s chest with a sob. Bram had laughed at her despair? That wasn’t like him at all. If he’d scoffed at whatever she’d told him, it was because Bram considered it baseless.
Another mystery. Or a dragon to slay? A letter would have been nice. Just a note explaining what this dragon looked like, as well as how formidable it might be.
“Oh, Abram. What have you done to me?” Willa cried.
Bram had definitely done something that was going to cause them all a world of trouble. Sam could feel it just as surely as Willa could. The ball would likely drop when the will was read in two days, after the funeral. Knowing Bram, that’s where he’d stage his final farewell to them all. He’d better get Spencer aside and find out what was in that will before it was read to anyone. He had an ominous feeling that Willa might go into shock when she discovered Bram’s ultimate plan. He had no doubt Abram Sinclair hadn’t gone to his grave peacefully. The old man would be fighting the whole way, as he had his whole life, to win.
And Willa, Sam was beginning to fear, was the prize.
At the sound of someone else entering the room, he looked back into the window’s reflection. Spencer was saving him the trouble of hunting him down. The aging lawyer walked up to Willa and gathered her in his arms, rocking her tenderly.
Another man who had fallen for the angel’s charm.
“I’m sorry, Willa,” Spencer crooned. “I know how much you cared for Bram.”
“Yes,” she said.
“I also know you wanted to be there for him.”
“It’s almost like he planned this, Spencer.”
“He probably did,” Spencer agreed, setting her away. “But he told me to ask your forgiveness. You’ve been so kind to him these last six weeks. Will you forgive the old man his scheming?”
“Maybe,” she whispered, looking at Bram as she wiped her eyes. “I just didn’t want him to be alone.”
“He wasn’t. I was with him.”
“How come Richard brought him home? Why not you?”
“I had urgent duties to see to back here.”
“For another client?”
“No, Bram’s been my only client for years now. The casket’s beautiful,” Spencer said, running his hand over the shining wood.
“Thanks to my crew,” Willa said with a snort, taking a swipe with her rag. “Abram was about as talented at working with wood as I am at cooking.”
“That bad, huh?” Spencer teased. “Bram told me about some of your meals.”