The euphoria of a moment ago collapsed, and with it came the bitter disappointment that always returned to take hold of her when she allowed herself to think about her marriage, her divorce, all the things she wanted that she’d never have.
She gazed into dark-lashed hazel eyes set in a handsome face crowned with very short dark brown hair.
She put her fingertips to her mouth, recalling those nicely shaped lips on hers and the renewal she’d thought he’d brought to her life.
But he wasn’t Ben. He was a stranger. And she didn’t care what he was doing here or why she was in bed with the children gathered around her.
The only thing that mattered was that he’d led her to believe the pain was over and life was going to begin again.
It wasn’t, though. And it was all his fault.
She raised a hand and slapped him as hard as she could.
CHAPTER TWO
“NO, MARIAH!” BRIAN, standing beside the stranger, caught her wrist. “He saved your life! I broke the water pipe—remember?—and you slipped on the towel and fell and hit your head. He carried you in here. He didn’t kiss you. He gave you artificial…you know.”
“Resuscitation,” Ashley said knowledgeably. “But I think you kissed him.”
“Yeah,” Jessica said. “I saw it.”
“Me, too,” Peter confirmed.
“Me, too,” Philip chimed in.
Mariah groaned and put her hands to her face. If she didn’t get herself together soon, she had no hope for her future. Once the school found out she was French-kissing strange men in front of the children, she’d have to take the job her sister, Parker, had offered her—working in her massage studio in the basement of city hall. Then she’d never get to Europe.
Mariah felt movement on the bed, and when she lowered her hands, she saw that the stranger was gone.
Brian took off after him, calling over his shoulder, “We’re going to cut off the water!”
The screeching of a siren could be heard outside.
“I’ll let the ambulance men in,” Ashley shouted as she left the room.
The children stood back and Mariah sat up. She was horrified that an ambulance had been called.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to get up,” Jessica said worriedly, sitting beside her.
Mariah’s intention was to tell her that she was fine, but she realized suddenly that she wasn’t. Her head ached abominably, and suddenly everything around her was wobbling.
Two men in white shirts with some kind of insignia on them burst into the room. One cupped her head gently with his hand and leaned her back into the pillows. “What’s your name, ma’am?” he asked.
“Mariah,” she replied weakly.
“I understand you’ve had a fall.”
That’s an understatement, she thought as she battled nausea. The Fall of Mariah Mercer could be a play in three acts.
WITH THE LITTLE BOY NAMED Brian shining a flashlight into the dark corners of the basement, Cam found the cutoff and turned it off. When he raced back upstairs, Brian at his heels, the paramedics were putting a protesting Mariah on a gurney.
“I cannot leave the children!” she insisted. “There are eight children under ten years of age…”
“We’re here, dear. We’re here.” The Lightfoot sisters appeared in the hallway, looking as though they’d just stepped out of a family portrait, circa 1930-something. They wore their usual long black dresses with lace collars. Letitia, the elder sister, had a small gold watch attached to her generous bosom. Lavinia, younger and smaller, had a sprig of silk violets pinned at the waist of her dress. Cam had had several meetings with them to discuss the kitchen renovation, and he’d found them surprisingly sharp in business, considering their vintage clothing and their charmingly old-fashioned approach to education.
“Ashley called us.” Letitia put an arm around the girl’s shoulders. “You gentlemen take good care of Mariah!” she admonished the paramedics, who were heading for the stairs. “I know your mother, Matthew Collingwood. I’ll have a word with her if Mariah isn’t returned to us in perfect health.”
The paramedic pushing the gurney cast a smile over his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Miss Letty. She’ll be fine. Watch the stairs, Charlie.”
“Well, now!” The sisters shooed the children toward the back of the house. “While Miss Lavinia calls the janitorial service to clean up the water, we’re going to camp here. Where are the sleeping bags from our hiking trip during spring break?”
Jessica and her sisters pulled down the attic stairs and fought over who would climb up to get them.
Letty tried to enlist Brian’s help, but he turned to Cam. “I could help you,” he whispered pleadingly.
“Ah…I’m sort of using him as my assistant,” Cam said. “Is it all right if I keep him for another hour or so?”
Letitia appeared concerned. “If you keep a close eye on him. He’s eager to help and sometimes…” She was obviously searching for a diplomatic explanation.
Cam understood. “He’ll be right beside me at all times.”
Brian gave him a grateful look.
“All right, then,” Letitia replied. “Brian, I’m counting on you to do exactly as you’re told.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he promised.
“Good.” Cam put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “For safety’s sake, I’m going to turn off the power. With water everywhere, I don’t want anyone touching light switches, even where it’s dry.”
“Right.”
He was about to ask Miss Letty if she had a flashlight to lead the children in the dark house, when she shouted up the attic stairs, “Jessie, bring the camp lanterns down with you, too!”
Cam grabbed the flashlight from his tool kit and, with Brian glued to his side, hurried back downstairs to shut down the power. He handed Brian the flashlight.
“This is so cool!” Brian said. “Nothing exciting ever happens around here.” Then apparently he realized what he’d said and looked sheepish. “I mean, I know it’s all my fault and it’s caused everybody a lot of trouble. And you probably charge a whole lot.”
“Yeah, I do.” With all the circuit breakers flipped, Cam and Brian stood in darkness except for the glow from the flashlight. “And the guys who have to clean up the water cost a bundle, too.”
Brian sighed. “I was going to take everybody to Disneyland for summer vacation if I found the gold.”
Cam turned him toward the stairs and let him lead the way with the light. “You mentioned that before. What gold are you talking about?”
The boy told him a story about a Confederate spy trying to escape to the South with a satchel full of gold. “He was in this building when he was shot, and the Yankees and the Lightfoots who owned the Manor then found the satchel, but not the gold. Everybody knows the story.”
“I’ve never heard it.”
“Mr. Groman told me. He teaches here, you know. Some rebel soldier stole it off a train and hid out with it in the carriage house. When they tiled the bathroom floor, they covered up the blood!”
The kid had a flair for theatrics, Cam thought, and was probably destined