It took only two calls. One, to ensure it was okay to clean her afternoon house the next day. The second was to her most reliable employee, Tilda Smith, who was happy to up her hours for the week by doing the windows and floors at the home Mac had planned to work at that morning.
Then she phoned her sister Poppy.
“What’s going on?” the younger woman asked, cheery as always.
“Are you alone?” Mac asked in a low voice.
Automatically, Poppy’s went quieter, too. “Yeah. Ryan dropped off Mason at school and then had to go down the hill for a meeting in LA. Is there a problem?”
“I’m in the Elliott mansion.”
Poppy gasped. “We’ve wanted to get inside there for years! How did you do it? Why did you do it? Does this have something to do with your supposed sighting of Zan at the wedding reception?”
“No ‘supposed’ about it,” Mac said. “Guess who showed up at Oscar’s this morning while Brett and I were having coffee?”
Another audible gasp sounded through the phone. “No!”
“Yes.”
“And he brought you home with him?” Poppy’s voice filled with glee. “Mac, have you already gone to bed with Zan Elliott?”
Pulling the phone away from her ear, Mac frowned at it, then put it back. “Of course not. I’m never going to bed with Zan Elliott.”
Her sister snorted.
“I’m serious!”
“I’ll believe you if you tell me he hasn’t aged well. Is there a bald spot? A paunch? Did he turn out to be one of those men who rejects personal hygiene?”
“He looks gorgeous, you ninny, and he seems freshly showered to me...but he’s sick.”
Poppy went quiet. “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. Did he come home to die?”
Mac rolled her eyes. “My God. You’ve got too active an imagination. No, he didn’t come home to die. He came down with a flu bug or something, and Brett and I had to drive him here. I’m, uh, staying awhile just to make sure he doesn’t need medical attention.”
“Oh. That’s nice of you.” She paused. “Can I come over and snoop around the house?”
“Poppy—”
“Please? You know we’ve always wanted to get in there.”
“Zan never invited us.”
“Which only made it all the more enticing. Say yes.”
Maybe she’d called her sister for just that reason. But it seemed a little sneaky. “What if Zan wakes up, suddenly better, and finds us wandering around his house?”
“Pfft,” Poppy said, dismissing the objection. “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. I’ll be there before you know it.”
Mac tiptoed back to the master, pulled a throw over Zan’s unmoving figure and shut the bedroom door. By the time she went back down the stairs, her sister was trucking up the walkway, all big eyes and flushed cheeks.
“Have you seen any ghosts?” Poppy asked. “You know, the kind with knives dripping blood, who hold their severed heads under their arms?”
That had always been rumor when they were kids. That the French château–inspired Elliott manse was peopled with specters and spooks. Mac held open the door and gestured her sister inside. “Have a look.”
Poppy’s shoulders slumped as she ventured into the foyer. “What? No suits of armor?”
“Maybe they were auctioned off by the Mountain Historical Society.” Many items from the house had been bequeathed to the organization and then sold for fund-raising purposes at a black-tie event the summer before. Mac hadn’t attended, but her sister and her fiancé had bought a few antiques.
“No, I didn’t see anything like that,” Poppy said, now moving into the large living area with its slate floors, paneled walls and huge marble-wrapped fireplace. “The views of the lake are spectacular.”
“Your windows open onto the same thing.”
“On the other side of the lake,” Poppy said, running her hand over the moss green velvet of the massive couch. “This place has been here forever, too—I heard it’s on the National Register of Historic Places.”
Mac trailed her sister into the kitchen. “Doesn’t look historic in here.”
“No.” Poppy turned a circle. “It’s completely updated.”
They wandered together from room to room, admiring the details of the massive staircase, the ridgeline or water views from every window, the carefully detailed bathrooms. Even the smallest bedroom had a fireplace.
“Oh, I do love it in here,” Poppy said, peeking into a room with built-in floor-to-ceiling bookcases that included a ladder that rolled along rails. Her hand trailed along the spines of old books that smelled like leather and lavender. “Maybe there are ghost stories.”
“Pretty different than where we grew up,” Mac said, recalling the ramshackle house where she’d lived with her brother and sisters. Their father had been terrible with money, causing problems in the marriage when Brett, Mac and Poppy were small. Dell Walker had even left for a time, during which his wife had an affair and became pregnant with Shay.
But he’d returned and patched things up with Lorna, which included embracing Shay as his own. From then on, the Walkers had lived rich in family and love for the mountains, despite the meager state of their bank accounts.
Walking back into the hallway with its plush Oriental carpet, Mac’s younger sister made a face. “No headless ghouls. I’m so disappointed,” she said, crossing to another door and reaching for the knob.
Mac lunged for her sister’s hand. “Wait—”
But she was too late. Poppy stood, framed by the jamb. “Oh,” she said. “Maybe not so disappointed, after all.”
Mac peeked around her shoulder and into the master bedroom, then swallowed her groan.
Zan still lay on the mattress of the massive four-poster bed, but sometime since she’d checked on him last, he’d shed his shoes. And his clothes.
All of them.
Facedown once again, he was naked, a pillow clutched in his arms like a lover.
“I’m going all tingly,” Poppy whispered.
“You’re engaged!” Mac said, elbowing her ribs.
“That doesn’t mean I’m blind. And I definitely can’t unsee that.” She pointed. “I don’t want to unsee that.”
Mac didn’t, either. Her gaze meandered over the wealth of skin on display, from the heavy bulges of his biceps, to the intriguing contours of his back on either side of the long furrow of his spine, to the muscled rise of his ass. “Um...”
“He’s aged well,” Poppy offered.
“Really, really well.” Mac’s skin prickled beneath her clothes and even her eyeballs felt hot. “This is bad.” Bad for me.
Poppy nodded. “We should leave.”
They both didn’t move. Then he did, in a restless stretch drawing up one knee to reveal—
Poppy yanked Mac back into the hall and shut the door.
“Hey,” Mac protested.
“If