Several years before, she’d converted a small anteroom off the first floor into a home away from home. She kept books, cosmetics, several changes of clothes there, but the room had slowly been filling up with the oddest assortment of treasures. A two-centuries-old Chinese desk, candles wrapped in a necklace of amethysts, a white fur rug by the bed, a narrow Louis XIV mirror…She shook her head at the wild assortment often enough. They were things she loved, but they certainly didn’t represent any standard decorating style. The silliest of all was a framed sign-Shall We Dance in the Kitchen?-that meant nothing at all, except that sometimes she wished she were that whimsical and romantic. Or that she could be.
Plunking down on the bed, she kicked off her shoes and phoned her parents to let them know she’d be staying in town, then got ready for bed and switched off the light. She was beat, yet somehow she lay there for hours, staring at the film of white curtains whispering in the window. Garrett refused to leave her mind.
It made no sense. He was the wrong man. Reed was the right man, the man she was supposed to be marrying. So why couldn’t she stop Garrett from haunting every corner of her thoughts?
In the morning, she promised herself, she’d call Reed. First thing. And until then, she mentally slapped herself upside the head and determined to squash her shameful attitude.
At least she tried to.
Garrett hadn’t meant to doze off, but he must have. Because when he opened his scratchy eyes, his neck and knees were cramped from sitting in the straight-back chair. The wall clock claimed more than an hour had passed…and his sister’s eyes were open.
He lurched out of the chair, exhaustion forgotten, as he picked up Caroline’s hand. He hated hospitals. Never knew what to say or do. But one look at his sister-her face as pale as the sheets, and the sad look in her eyes scaring him-and he wanted to shoot someone.
“Garrett.” She said his name as if trying to talk through a mouthful of fuzz. Still, her frail voice managed to communicate relief and love at seeing him.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call you back. Beyond sorry,” he said fiercely. “I don’t know why you did this, sis, and I don’t care. I’ll help you make it right.”
She tried to shake her head. The effort seemed to exhaust her. “You can’t. But…glad you came.” She licked dry lips. “Love you.”
“Love you, too. I want you to rest. We don’t have to talk about anything until you’re ready. I just want you to know that I’m here. I’ll be here. And I won’t let anyone pressure you about anything, I swear-”
“Garrett…” Her fingers closed weakly around his wrist. “I know you want to help me. But you can’t fix this. No one can. I did something…terrible.”
She fell asleep before he could ask anything else, before she could try saying anything else. Garrett wasn’t used to anything shaking him, but the defeat and fear in his sister’s voice rattled him hard. He sat there, worrying up a storm, until a nurse came in and shooed him out.
He’d have battled the nurse-and won-if he thought there was anything further to gain from staying with Caroline. But right then it was obvious she needed rest more than anything. And if he wanted a chance to get to the bottom of his sister’s mess, he needed to get some rest himself.
The Keating estate was a short five miles from town, a two-story brick house set on a hillside, with a curved deck and a sculpted sloping lawn. It loomed in the moonlight like a gothic castle. He used his old house key, let himself in the kitchen entrance and immediately stepped out of his shoes, not wanting to wake his parents or any of the household staff.
It struck his ironic sense of humor that he used to tiptoe just like this when he was a teenager sneaking late into the house. One step into the living room and his big toe crashed into a chair leg. That was a déjà vu, too.
Moonlight flooded in the windows, so that once his eyes adjusted he realized his mother had redecorated again. The decor this time seemed to be some French period. Lots of gilt and tassels. Lots of mean furniture legs. Very elegant, if you went for that sort of thing. Garrett didn’t, and his toe was stinging like a banshee.
“Garrett!” His father switched on the light from the paneled doors at the stairway.
“Dad.” He offered the hug, knowing his father wouldn’t think to. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t.” Merritt wore pajamas, but his iron-gray hair was brushed, his eyes tired but alert. “Your mother and I are both up. Waiting for you. Hoping you’d gotten something out of Caroline that we didn’t.”
Upstairs, his parents had a mini living room off their sleeping quarters. Whiskey was poured, neat. His mother pecked his cheek, then curled on the couch in the window seat by the bay windows. “I hope you talked to her,” Barbara said immediately.
Garrett plunked down on an oversize footstool. He wasn’t about to replay his sister’s words. “I stayed for a few hours, but she was sleeping deeply.”
“I just don’t understand why she’d do this to us!”
Garrett didn’t expect either parent to ask how he was, how his life was going. The conversation was immediately about them. “Caroline didn’t do anything to you. She did it to herself.”
His mother rubbed her temples as if she were at the end of her rope. “That’s the point. That’s the exact point. Everyone will talk. Especially with all this scandal about Bunny’s death and those diaries…Now there’s just more fuel to the gossip fire. People could think we did something, when you know we gave that girl every advantage a daughter could possibly have. I swear, Caroline was selfish from the day she was born-”
“Mom. She’s troubled. She has to be in major despair over something or she’d never have done this.”
“Oh, pfft.” Barbara stood up, waving her glass. “She’s spoiled and wants attention. Like always. She doesn’t think of me or your father. Or our reputation in the community. She has everything she ever wanted in this life, but does she ever think of us?”
Okay. He’d been in his parents’ house all of ten minutes and already he wanted to smash a wall. That fast, he remembered why he’d left Eastwick and never looked back.
Later, though, when he lay in bed in the spare room, he recalled how hard it had been to leave his younger sister alone back then. And more than that, how painful it had been to leave Emma.
Right now it just didn’t matter if his parents drove him as crazy as they always had. He couldn’t leave his sister to the wolves. Until her husband came home from China-and until Garrett was certain she was going to be all right-he was staying here. Which meant he had to find a way to make his business work here for an indefinite period of time.
Before drifting off to sleep, Emma’s face whisked into his mind again. Her thick, glossy hair used to swish all the way down her back. Now she wore it shoulder length, but it was still like moonlight on black silk. So raven-dark, so rich, yet with light in every strand. Her soft mouth was as evocative as it had always been. So were those unforgettable eyes, so deep blue they were almost purple. Eyes a guy could get lost in.
God knows he had.
It still puzzled him that she hadn’t looked at him like an engaged woman.
And that her classy clothes showed off a successful, poised woman…yet that wasn’t how she’d looked at him either.
From the first second their eyes met, he’d suddenly remembered rolling in the grass with her. Stealing kisses after football games. Pressing her up against the locker after school, feeling her breasts against his chest, pretending to be talking about homework. She’d blush and flush and fluster, but then she’d look at him from under those thick black eyelashes. Teasing him. Emma had loved turning him on, loved the power of it, the fun of it, the joy of it. They’d tempted wicked every which way from Sunday. She’d made him hotter than fire-and far more frustrated.