No response. Nothing. Nada. If the dog didn’t make occasionally snuffling noises, Ginger might have worried it was dead. As it was, she figured the big hound for a solid hundred pounds … which meant she had only a twenty-pound advantage. It took some tussling, but eventually she got a wedge of screen door open, stepped over the hound and turned herself into a pretzel. She made it inside with just a skinned elbow and an extra strip off her already frayed temper.
“Gramps! Cornelius! It’s me!”
No one answered. Cornelius was … well, Ginger had never known exactly what Cornelius was. He worked for Gramps, but she’d never known his job title. He was the guy she’d gone to when a doll’s shoe went down to the toilet, when she needed a ride to a party and Grandma couldn’t take her. He got plumbers and painters in the house, supervised the lawn people, got prescriptions and picked up people from the airport. Cornelius didn’t answer her, though, any more than her grandfather did.
She charged through, only taking seconds to glance around. The house had been built years ago, back when the first room was called a parlor. It faced east, caught all the morning sun, and was bowling alley size, stuffed to the gills with stuff. Gram’s piano, the maze of furniture and paintings and rugs, were all the same, yet Ginger felt her anxiety antenna raised high. The room was dusty. Nothing new there, but she saw crumbs on tables, half-filled glasses from heaven knows when, enough dust to write her name on surfaces.
A little dirt never hurt anyone, her grandmother had always said. Gram felt a woman who had a perfect house should have been doing things that mattered. Still.
A little disarray was normal. Beyond dusty was another.
She hustled past the wild cherrywood staircase, past the dining room—one glass cabinet there had a museum-quality collection of teapots. A second glass cabinet held the whole historic history of Gautier tea tins, some older than a century. Past the dining “salon,” which was what Gramps called the sun room—meaning that he’d puttered in there as long as she’d known him, trying samples of tea plants, mixing and mating and seeing what new offspring he could come up with.
The house had always been fragrant with the smell of tea, comforting with the familiar whir of big ceiling fans, a little dust, open books, blue—her grandma had had some shade of blue in every room in the house; it was her favorite color and always had been. Longing for Gram almost made her eyes well with tears again. She’d even loved Gram’s flaws. Even when they had a little feud—invariably over Ginger getting into some kind of impulsive trouble—their fights invariably led to some tears, some cookies and a big hug before long—because no one in the Gautier family believed in going to bed mad.
The good memories were all there. The things she remembered were all there. But the whole downstairs had never had a look of neglect before. She called her grandfather’s name again, moving down the hall, past the dining room and the butler’s keep. Just outside the kitchen she heard—finally!—voices.
The kitchen was warehouse size, with windows facing north and west—which meant in the heat of a summer afternoon sun poured in, hotter than lava, on the old tile table. A kettle sat directly on the table, infusing the room with the scents of Darjeeling and peppermint. A fat, orange cat snoozed on the windowsill. Dishes and glasses and what all crowded the tile counter. The sink faucet was dripping. Dust and crumbs and various spills had long dried on the fancy parquet floor.
Ginger noticed it all in a blink. She took in the stranger, as well—but for that first second, all her attention focused on her grandfather.
He spotted her, pushed away from the table. A smile wreathed his face, bigger than sunshine. “What a sight for sore eyes, you. You’re so late. I was getting worried. But you look beautiful, you do. The drive must have done you wonders. Come here and get your hug.”
The comment about being late startled her—she’d made amazing time, he couldn’t possibly have expected her earlier. But whatever. What mattered was swooping her arms around him, feeling the love, seeing the shine in his eyes that matched her own.
“What is this? Aren’t you eating? You’re skinny!” she accused him.
“Am not. Eating all the time. Broke the scales this morning, I’m getting so fat.”
“Well, if that isn’t the biggest whopper I’ve heard since I left home.”
“You’re accusing your grandfather of fibbing?”
“I am.” The bantering was precious, how they’d always talked, teasing and laughing until they’d inevitably catch a scold from her grandmother. But something was wrong. Gramps had never been heavy, never tall, but she could feel his bones under his shirt, and his pants were hanging. His eyes, a gorgeous blue, seemed oddly vague. His smile was real. The hug wonderfully real. But his face seemed wizened, wrinkled and cracked like an old walnut shell, white whiskers on his chin as if he hadn’t shaved—when Cashner Gautier took pride in shaving every day of his life before the sun came up.
She cast another glance at the stranger … and felt her nerves bristle sharper than a porcupine’s. The man was certainly no crony of her gramps, couldn’t be more than a few years older than she was.
The guy was sprawled at the head of the old tile table, had scruffy dirty-blond hair, wore sandals and chinos with frayed cuffs and a clay-colored shirt-shirt. Either he was too lazy to shave or was growing a halfhearted beard. And yeah, there was more to the picture. The intruder had tough, wide shoulders—as if he could lift a couple of tree logs in his spare time. The tan was stunning, especially for a guy with eyes that certain blue—wicked blue, light blue, blue like you couldn’t forget, not if you were a woman. The height, the breadth, the way he stood up slow, showing off his quiet, lanky frame—oh, yeah, he was a looker.
Men that cute were destined to break a woman’s heart.
That wasn’t a problem for her, of course. Her heart was already in Humpty Dumpty shape. There wasn’t a man in the universe who could wrestle a pinch of sexual interest from her. She was just judiciously assessing and recognizing trouble.
“You have to be Ginger,” he said in a voice that made her think of dark sugar and bourbon.
“Aw, darlin’, I should have said right off … this is Ike. Come to see me this afternoon. He’s—”
“I saw right off who he was, Gramps.” He had to be the man her grandfather told her about on the phone. The one who was trying to get Gramps to “sign papers.” The one who was trying to “take the land away from him.” Gramps had implied that his doctor had started it all, was behind the whole conspiracy, to take away “everything that ever mattered to him.”
Ginger drew herself up to her full five-four. “You’re the man who’s been advising my grandfather, aren’t you, bless your heart. And that has to be your dog on the front porch, isn’t it?”
“Pansy. Yes.”
“Pansy.” For a moment she almost laughed, the name was so darned silly for that huge lummox of a dog. But she was in no laughing mood. She was in more of a killing mood. “Well, I’d appreciate it if you’d get your dog and yourself and take off, preferably in the next thirty seconds.”
“Honey!” Her grandfather pulled out of her arms and shot her a shocked expression.
She squeezed his hand, but she was still facing down the intruder. “It’s all right, Gramps. I’m here. And I’m going to be here from now on.” Her voice was as cordial as Southern sweet tea, but that was only because she was raised with Southern manners. “I’ll be taking care of my grandfather from now on, and we won’t need any interference from anyone. Bless your heart, I’m sure you know your way to the front door.”
“Honey, this is Ike—”
“Yes, I heard you say the name.” She wasn’t through glaring daggers at the son of a sea dog who’d try to cheat a vulnerable old man. “I really don’t care if your name is Judas or Sam