“She was ninety-two when she died, Addy. New paint didn’t exactly top her list of priorities.” Spencer kept his gaze directly ahead of him, but his clipped enunciation communicated his displeasure well enough.
“I’m a little tense.”
She knew her words weren’t an apology, could hear her mother’s voice in her head demanding that she make one, but Addy felt as if she’d done enough apologizing to this man already.
“I know.” Spencer’s hand tightened around hers for a moment and he turned his head to look directly at her. His eyes were the blue of the sky a half hour after sunset. Then he let go and reached for the door.
“I know.” She mouthed the words at his back like a bratty five-year-old. Of course he does. Spencer Reed knows everything.
It was amazing how easily this man could get under her skin with just two words.
“Come inside. I’ll find you some dry clothes.” He called the words back over his shoulder at her as he pushed open the front door and then stepped quickly up the staircase directly in front of the door.
“I’m not going to be here long enough—” she started to call out after his retreating back “—to change clothes.” She ended by talking to herself. “Sheesh. Like talking to a brick wall.”
Might as well check the place out, Addy thought. Then she actually looked around her and realized that she would have no idea where to start. A long hallway extended on either side of the staircase toward the rear of the house, and what seemed like a dozen doorways opened off it, scattered randomly on both sides of the hall. Even the doorways themselves were varied, some with doors, some without. One was arched and another was an open cutout in the shape of the minaret of a Turkish mosque.
Flipping a mental coin, she started walking slowly down the right side of the hall, trailing her fingers along a chair rail. A faded Oriental runner muffled the sounds of her boots on the hardwood floors.
Above the chair rail, the walls were crowded. Oil paintings, photograph collages, dried flowers, even an old violin, were displayed with care for visual pleasure all the way down the hall. Addy stopped in front of an age-darkened portrait of a dark-haired woman with her hair pulled back severely in a bun and a small smile on her lips. The family resemblance was unmistakable, even if Addy couldn’t have guessed the century for the life of her. Surprised, she found herself wondering if this was where her mother’s habit of blanketing her walls with photographs and artwork and family mementos came from.
Reaching out a hand, she traced the line of the woman’s cheekbone, her fingertips a millimeter from the painting’s surface. An angular scribble in the corner of the painting caught her eye. After a moment’s examination, she realized that the scribble was numbers.
1899.
Spiderlike chills crawled over her skin, lifting the hairs on her arm. This picture of a woman who looked so much like her mother, her sisters, herself, was over one hundred years old. Some quick math allowed her to guess that she was staring at a picture of her own great-great-grandmother.
“Her name was Susannah.”
She jumped and clenched her jaw to keep from yelping at the sudden noise. One hand pressed firmly to her chest, she took a deep breath.
“Don’t do that,” she said. “You could kill someone.” Spencer was holding out a pile of neatly folded clothes. She ignored it. A grin quirked across his face.
“Sorry.” His voice didn’t sound very apologetic. He looked at the portrait. “I don’t even know who she is, but Adeline used to stop and look at that painting all the time. She told me once that the woman’s name was Susannah.”
“Susannah is my mother’s name,” she said after a long silence. “I think she was my great-great-grandmother.” Something was cracking inside her. What felt like an enormous pressure burst into existence behind her eyes and in her temples. She took a breath and felt it hitch alarmingly in her chest. Shook her head and closed, then opened, her eyes. “Is there a bathroom here?”
“Second door down. Take these with you.” Spencer pushed the clothes into her hands and she grabbed at them reflexively.
In the bathroom, she dropped the clothes on a green marble counter, cranked on the hot water and thrust her hands under the strong rush out of the antique taps. Everything was cold. Her hands felt like clattering ice cubes. She looked up and into a mirror and saw that her teeth were chattering.
No wonder I’m out of it—I really am about to come down with pneumonia. Time to stop being stupid just to prove I’m stubborn.
Five minutes later, she felt almost human again. Her jeans were still damp and chilly—taking her pants off was more comfortable than she’d wanted to get. But wearing a faded navy sweatshirt with Duke University emblazoned across the chest and thick, dry socks returned a little of her calm.
Duke?
She followed the sound of a whistling kettle and found Spencer in a tiny servant’s kitchen, not much more than a closet with a hot plate and a sink, off the other hall. He’d removed his overcoat, suit jacket and tie somewhere along the way and stood in gray slacks and a deep blue button-down with the sleeves rolled up. She stood in the doorway, reluctant to squeeze into the tiny room with this man who made all the little hairs on her arms stand on end.
“So, Great-Aunt Adeline was a big Blue Devils fan, was she?”
When he looked startled at her sudden appearance, she was pleased. Let him be the one off balance for a little while. His gaze skimmed over her from head to toe. She saw his eyes narrow and guessed that he’d noticed she still wore her wet jeans.
“Not that I’m aware of. That’s mine,” he answered as he returned to pouring tea from a fat ivory pot into two bone-china teacups. “Did the sweatpants not fit?”
“I don’t know,” she said, watching him pour. She found it irritating that instead of looking silly or a bit prissy with a teapot, the contrast between the fragility of the china and the muscles in Spencer’s hands and forearms only emphasized the strength of his physical presence in the tiny room. “I have this thing about wandering around big, empty houses with guys I don’t know while wearing their pants. I’d rather keep my own, thanks. So tell me, why are your dog and your sweatpants at my great-aunt’s house?”
His next words confirmed her suspicions.
“I’ve been staying here for a while,” he answered, dropping what she could only assume was an actual tea cozy over the pot and then turning to her. “Do you take anything in your tea?”
“I have no idea. I never drink it. Is living in my great-aunt’s house one of the perks of attorney-client privilege?”
“Of course not. Don’t you read anything?” He doctored both teacups with a dollop of honey and a splash of milk and placed them on saucers. “Let’s sit in the library. I’ll start a fire. You can warm up and I’ll tell you about all the information inside that useful packet of papers I sent you this morning.”
Trailing him down the hall, Addy felt like a fifth grader caught throwing spitballs during the teacher’s pop quiz. She had deliberately ignored the stack of legal documents since she had no intention of accepting the bequest. Now she realized that when dealing with Spencer Reed, it was better at all times to be fully prepared. She was clumsy enough around him without choosing to be ignorant, also.
The library was a long, narrow room that turned out to contain not only books and a fireplace but also a half-dozen glass-fronted cases holding collections of everything from iridescent pinned butterflies to small, fossilized sea creatures to dusty hunks of various minerals and semiprecious crystals. It was as if walking into a turn-of-the-century curio museum, and Addy tumbled straight into love at her first sight of its jumbled oddities.
“Here,