Through a streaked window, she watched the skyline of Baton Rouge disappear in a mass of black clouds. Her cab crossed a wide, churning expanse of muddy water the driver said was the Mississippi River.
Never before had Noelani felt so out of her element.
Soon the city gave way to wet fields of tall cane. The knot in her stomach began to uncoil. As a child she’d played hide-and-seek in similar cane rows. Friends often broke off stalks and chewed them for the juice, but Tutu had warned it would ruin her teeth, so Noelani rarely sneaked a nibble. But, oh, how she loved the smell of burnt sugar that used to hang like mist in the air when they burned fields. More of life’s changes, she mused, watching field after field slide past. Agricultural developers had introduced new cane that was too tough to chew, followed by better fertilizers, which made it more advantageous to plow under old ratoons. As well, environmentalists had forced an end to burning.
The driver pointed. “Up ahead, through those magnolia trees, is Bellefontaine. In French, Bellefontaine means pretty fountain. There are fountains all over the grounds. I’m not sure how many.”
Noelani scooted forward as far as her seat belt allowed and craned her neck for her first look at Duke Fontaine’s home. A home he’d purportedly been willing to give up for her mother. Right! The gift of a lei promised that its recipient would return to the islands, but Duke had never made another trip to Maui. Plainly, by the look of this place, he’d gone on with his life in grand style while Anela pined hers away.
Noelani counted four fountains on a huge manicured lawn. Not even the downpour detracted from the effect of tall white pillars and wide balconies supporting a mansion larger than Queen Emma’s summer palace. As a special treat one time, Tutu took Noelani on a tour of their most beloved Hawaiian ruler’s part-time residence. This home was more ostentatious.
Unable to catch her breath, Noelani didn’t immediately realize the cab had pulled around to the back of the house. Awed by the home’s magnificence, and heedless of the falling rain, she stepped out for a better look. The fresh, rain-washed scent failed to cloak an acrid odor of charred wood.
Standing several yards away from a jutting porte cochere, Noelani saw that a section of the mansion had burned. Recently enough so that a workman was even now attempting to spread tarps over a gaping hole in the roof. He leaned far out from the top rung of an extension ladder. The man was bare-headed, and dark hair lay plastered to his skull. Faded blue jeans and a gray T-shirt were molded to his wet skin.
Suddenly the ladder slipped out from under the man’s sneakers and fell hard into a flower bed below. The man was left clawing at a sagging rain gutter. He managed to grab the tarp with one hand seconds before the gutter cracked and a large section canted crazily. If he continued to kick, the section would break and plummet him to the ground below. Granted, that section of the house was only one story tall, compared to three in the main structure. Nevertheless, the man could break his neck.
Heedless of her strappy leather heels and new linen suit, Noelani tore across the soft lawn, leaving her cabbie in the process of requesting her fare.
ADAM ROSS, WHO’D BEEN HIRED by Casey Fontaine to restore Bellefontaine to historical perfection, swore roundly at his ladder. He maintained a tenuous grip on the canvas tarp and had one elbow buried in a weak rain gutter that had sustained damage during a recent kitchen fire. It wasn’t bad enough that this storm had blown in from the gulf, calling a halt to the job of his dreams; now Adam feared he’d break a leg or worse and lose the contract altogether. “Dammit to hell!”
He kicked experimentally to see if maybe the ladder hadn’t fallen all the way to the ground. A warning crack and further sagging of the gutter forced him to freeze. Even at that, his hundred-and-ninety-pound weight was liable to rip the entire gutter from its shaky mooring.
“Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn!” He kicked again, only halfheartedly.
“Quit swearing at the roof and hold still.”
Adam wondered if he’d imagined the woman who appeared to be digging through the honeysuckle below and to the left of his swinging feet.
“Are you hurt?” a low melodic voice inquired.
“A few scrapes,” he muttered. “Probably bruised a rib or two. If you can lift that ladder, sweet thing, chances are I’ll live.”
“Chances go down if you call me sweet thing again.”
Adam couldn’t see much of his Good Samaritan. But he fell instantly in lust with her sweet-as-sugar voice. Lately, women hadn’t figured in Adam’s life. He’d been too busy building a business after working his butt off to graduate from LSU in restorative architecture. Certainly he’d never been smitten with a woman based solely on her voice. That was about to change, however, if this one got him out of his current mess.
Damn, any woman capable of standing his heavy ladder upright the way the Amazon below had managed with the ease of a seasoned construction worker definitely owned a big piece of Adam’s heart.
Despite a downpour few women of Adam’s acquaintance would’ve ventured out in, this one had come from nowhere, raised his ladder and then climbed a few rungs to guide his feet to safety.
“Thanks,” he panted. “You saved my—” he’d been about to say job, but that sounded too parsimonious “—my life.”
“Hardly anything so dramatic. But you’re welcome.”
Now that the dangling man was safe and her heart had stopped hammering wildly, Noelani retreated and squinted up for a clearer look at him. She judged the man to be in his early thirties. Even on this overcast day, she could tell that his eyes were very blue. The steaming T-shirt plastered to his broad chest sported the logo of a local university. “Are you…Jackson Fontaine?” Her throat went dry as it struck Noelani that she might have given aid to her half brother.
Adam stared down on a mass of black hair framing a face that seemed to be all eyes. He also noted a lot of leg below a short black skirt. A very nice package from his bird’s-eye view. “Stay put,” he ordered, having more pressing matters at the moment than cataloging his helper’s pleasing attributes. “Could you hold the ladder, please? I’ll secure these tarpaulins so they won’t blow away.”
Either he hadn’t heard or else he chose to ignore her question. The fool hoisted himself off his safe perch onto the roof and left the metal ladder vibrating under Noelani’s fingers. She barely caught his request—or more to the point—his edict.
He must be Jackson Fontaine. Who but the lord of the manor would deem it his right to keep a woman standing in the rain while he covered his castle? Oh, well. She couldn’t get much wetter. And it was a warm rain. Since she needed to speak to him, anyway, she might as well ensure he didn’t break his fool neck.
“Hey, lady. How about you pay your fare and let me be on my way?”
Adam slipped again when he heard the rough male voice heckling his savior. He tied the last tarp and quickly descended the ladder. As he did, he saw that his helper was having trouble unsticking one of her spiky heels from the mud around the honeysuckle.
Skipping the last three rungs, Adam landed hard and grasped her elbow. He jetted her across the lawn to keep her from sinking those stilts she wore into the rain-softened grass.
She jerked away from his hold. “I can walk on my own.”
But Adam didn’t release her until they reached the asphalt drive. “The least I can do for causing you a problem is to pay your cabbie,” he said gallantly, peeling some bills off a money clip he’d dug, with great difficulty, out of the pocket of his soaking wet jeans.
Noelani wanted to get out of the rain before she squared the debt she now owed her host. As the driver snatched his fare and jumped back into the cab, she hefted her suitcases and again wobbled gingerly onto the wet lawn, aiming for the front door of the mansion. All at once she was left clutching air.
“We’ll