In fact, the only things Tori had ever heard about their grandmother had painted a picture of the perfect political wife and devoted parent whose tragic death had hit her family hard.
“What makes you think your mother had an issue with giving up her family?” Tori asked, curious.
“I was hoping you’d let me show you something.”
“Laura, I’m here to cover the bedding consultant and her Naughty Nuptials. Remember?”
“Then let’s go for broke.” Laura reached for the radio affixed to her belt. “Come in, picture taker.”
A few moments passed with the crackle of static between them before a male voice shot back, “Got a copy, bedding consultant. Go ahead.”
“I need a ten-four.”
“I’m soaking up the rays at your pool, babe.”
Tori recognized Tyler Tripp’s voice and listened to Laura sweet-talk him into leaving the pool to meet them in his room.
“Just wait,” she said to Tori. “I promise what I have to show you will be worth the trip.”
They caught up with Tyler on the third floor. He indeed had come straight from the pool, with his surfer shorts and wet hair. Laura gave him a big hug and said, “I so appreciate this. I know I promised you a whole day off.”
He flashed them a tolerant smile, his gaze raking lazily over Tori. “No rest for the wicked, babe. That’s the nature of the game. Tori knows.”
“Indeed.” She raked an equally lazy gaze over Tyler.
Now here was a man who knew how to enjoy his life. Tanned. Buff. Gorgeous long hair she could wrap herself in. He was enjoying himself out at the pool on a sunny Sunday rather than holing up inside to work. His dark gaze spelled trouble, and the silver studs adorning his eyebrow and ears made her wonder if he had piercings in places she couldn’t see without a research expedition into his surfer shorts.
His artistic mind had earned him the respect of the journalism community, and if he’d ever shown up on the doorstep of the family mansion, Rutger, her grandfather’s butler, would have slammed shut the door and called security.
He was exactly the type of man Tori normally found herself attracted to—even better, because of their common interest in journalism—only this man didn’t ignite even the teensiest spark.
No, everything she might have felt for this absolutely scrumptious man, she felt for the totally uptight and unsuitable assistant GM who wanted nothing to do with her.
Damn that chemistry, anyway. Maybe she should lay off Adam and reconcile herself to observing the magic instead of living it and writing a factual account of the Naughty Nuptials. Why should she care if the man chose to shrivel up inside that gorgeous body of his and ignore everything around him?
“Tyler’s been pulling together his footage of the grand opening events,” Laura said. “I want him to show you something we came across the other night.”
Tori followed her into a spacious suite that cornered the building on the third floor, a guest room comfortably furnished with living, dining and small kitchen areas sans the romance-themed grandeur of her own Wedding Knight Suite. Which just went to show that Laura had been serious about making her staff take good care of their local reporter. On the journalism food chain, Tori Ford was plankton compared to Tyler Tripp.
“So how’s it going?” she asked him.
“It’s going. I made a deal with myself to come back here every night and not sleep until I’ve transferred the day’s footage. So far I’m on top of it.”
“Good for you. My editor extended my daily deadline, but I’m still scrambling to write my article and post it on time.”
“Nice spread today.” Tyler moved into the office area that had been set up as a mini production studio, and Tori smiled. Considering the source, his words were high praise indeed. Now if she could just convince her managing editor…
“It won’t be too difficult to find, will it?” Laura asked.
Tyler slung a pool towel over the back of a recliner. “No problem. We’ll view it on my computer.”
He booted his system, and the staccato beeps and blips ensued while they waited. When the monitor screen went live, Tyler sat down, opening programs and flipping through windows.
He forwarded through footage of what Tori recognized as the Racy Rehearsal Dinner event that had taken place on the night before the wedding, and when Laura cued him, he began clicking the pImages** forward frame by frame. “Here you go.”
Tori glanced at a table and recognized the people seated there. Her family. Her parents. Her sister and brother-in-law.
As the featured couple for the upcoming Hottest Honeymoon week, Miranda and Troy had been participating in all the festivities. When Laura’s mother had been invited to the rehearsal dinner for a look at the Mireille Marceaux painting she’d helped arrange the loan of, Miranda had insisted her parents be invited as a show of force against the Grangers.
As a result, there’d been Fords and Grangers together in the same room for the first time in years. Tori had been able to slant this society bit for her feature. Successfully, too, as she’d been pleased to learn from her managing editor, even if Adam Grant had called her tactics sensationalism.
Damn man. Maybe he really was a hopeless case and she should just give up.
Tori scowled at the monitor, watching as the camera zoomed in on her mother, looking as beautiful as always. But the look on her face was one Tori hadn’t seen before, an unguarded look that would have been fleeting without Tyler to play it out frame by frame. That look arced through a lot of emotions…all painful, all captured on film in aching clarity.
Then the angle of the camera shifted and panned in on Laura’s mother.
Occasionally during her school years at Westfalls, Tori had seen Suzanne Granger in the business offices where the woman had worked as chief financial officer. Her wavy brown hair might be different than her own mother’s red, but the similarities between the sisters were striking. Not only their features, but their expressions.
Tori didn’t have to ask to know that these long-alienated sisters had been looking at each other across that crowded ballroom when this footage had been filmed.
“Why are you showing me this?” she asked.
“Because of what you said at breakfast. I think you’re right. What happened between our moms isn’t cut-and-dried.”
Tyler slid his chair back. “If you don’t need me anymore, ladies, I’ll head back to the pool. Clyde promised to ply me with some serious alcohol so I don’t notice the heat.”
“Have him whip you up a Rum Demon. You’ll forget your name.” Laura tugged his ponytail. “Go have fun. I’ll lock up.”
He didn’t need to be told twice. This man understood the importance of fun and, grabbing his towel, he took off, leaving Tori and Laura alone.
Dropping onto the arm of a recliner, Tori stared at the monitor where Suzanne Granger’s hauntingly familiar face stared back. “Okay, Laura. I agree things aren’t cut-and-dried between our mothers.”
“I want to find out what happened and see if we can fix things. Doesn’t seeing them like this make you sad?”
Sad was only part of it. Frustrated that her mother ran herself ragged being the perfect society woman was the other part. “It makes me wonder.”
“About what happened to break them up?”
“About your sanity. We already know what broke up this family. Your mother ran off to a commune with an artist.”
Laura