The Soon-To-Be-Disinherited Wife

Eight

Late-afternoon sun poured through the windshield as Emma turned into her parents’ driveway. As she shut off the engine and climbed out, she took a long, bracing breath.

This visit was going to be difficult, but it had to be done. She owed her parents a more extensive explanation about Reed and the broken engagement. And this afternoon was the best possible time to handle this, because she felt a rare surge of strength-not the poise she put on in public but darn near something real. She actually wanted to have this talk with her parents, wanted to be honest with them. It amazed her.

She knew Garrett was the catalyst for that boost of confidence. Darn it, at her age, she shouldn’t need somebody else to validate her. But he had. He’d made her feel accepted and wanted for who she was-not who others wanted her to be. And as she hiked to the front door, she felt an easiness on the inside she hadn’t experienced in a month of Sundays.

Pausing before entering, she glanced up. She loved this house, always had. Dearborns had built it a century before. With its four chimneys and multiple roofs and gothic turrets, it wasn’t quite a castle but almost. As a young girl she’d fantasized about beauty and perfection, formed by the gorgeous home surrounding her. The house itself had always given her a sense of security, especially when real life hadn’t been that easy when she was a kid.

She let herself in, calling, “Mom! Dad! I’m home!”

Funny, but she’d been sleeping so often at Color that she’d practically forgotten this was technically still her address. Her mom rushed out of the living room, her heels clattering on the parquet floor. At a glance Emma could see she was sober, which was both a relief and a surprise. But Diana was usually impeccably groomed, and today her white linen slacks and top looked slept in, her hair in disarray. “I called and called you. Why didn’t you answer?”

“But I did, Mom. I left a message that I’d be here this afternoon. I knew you’d be upset over the breakup, but it also wasn’t something we could discuss in a quick phone call. I had a meeting this morning and then I had to have lunch with Felicity to start calling off all the wedding arrangements-”

Her mother waved a frantic hand, clearly expressing that those were unnecessary details. “You have to get Reed back. Right now, today. Immediately. You have to marry him. David!” she called, although she never took her eyes off her daughter. “Emma, you have to listen to us!”

Emma stiffened, losing some of the sureness she’d felt walking in here. Her time with Garrett suddenly seemed a million hours ago. “Mom, I know how fond you are of Reed. And I know how much you wanted to have the wedding here, but I’ll take care of canceling all those arrangements and details-”

“It has nothing to do with the arrangements or expense, you foolish, foolish girl. David!”

Her father showed up in the doorway. She got a quick hug. Very quick. They got just close enough for her to feel his poker-straight spine, to see the tight lines around his eyes. “Honey, you don’t realize what you’ve done.”

“Of course I do. I called off an engagement.”

“You threw away a fortune,” her mother said furiously. “Now come in here and sit down. After we talk, you can call Reed and make it up to him.”

Something was wrong. Nothing they were saying was making sense. The serenity she’d walked in with completely deserted her. “What on earth are you talking about?”

They flanked her going into the living room. Unlike a normal afternoon in this coral-and-cream room, though, there was no decanter of scotch on the priceless Chinese mirrored coffee table, no TV on broadcasting the news, no fancy hors d’oeuvres to munch on. In fact, the room was so still, it resembled a showpiece.

“Sit,” her father ordered.

They all did, but it was her mother who started talking. “You’ve thrown away millions of dollars,” she said dramatically.

It was her mom’s mom, the Soule side of the family, who’d come over on the Mayflower. Her dad had married into that old aristocracy-and old money. His side was hardly poor, and heaven knew, he’d made his own fortune. But it was the old Soule money that added up to a piece of the rock. At least, the Dearborn rock.

“Come on, you two. Fill me in. I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

“Emma, you claimed for years that you had no interest in marrying. Your grandmother was afraid you meant it. So were we. And there’d be no one to pass on the whole Dearborn legacy unless you married and had children. So your grandmother made it a condition of your trust…that you had to marry before the age of thirty to get the money.”

For the first time Emma started to believe that her parents weren’t just giving her attitude and dramatics. “Wait a minute,” she said quietly. “Just slow down. No one ever told me any of this before-”

“We didn’t think we had to, honey. Because once you started seeing Reed, we both could see that relationship was becoming serious. If you just go through with the wedding, everything will be fine. I know you hadn’t set a firm date, but it was always going to be at the end of July or early August. Definitely before your thirtieth birthday. So all you have to do is follow through-”

“Whoa. Just hold on.” Emma stood up, still trying to grasp this.

She’d been a teenager when her grandmother died, and that was the first she’d been told about the trust-and the considerable size of the trust. That security had affected every choice she’d made as an adult. “Grandma didn’t know I didn’t plan to marry. I was just a kid-”

“But you always talked that way, Emma. The only time it was different was when you were with the Keating boy. But as a child-and after you and Garrett split up-you always sang the same tune. About not wanting to marry. Not needing to marry. And your grandmother-”

Emma heard that out. “All right-but if the trust doesn’t go to me, who does it go to?”

“Your grandmother made a list of charities and causes, if you failed to marry. It’s all legal. Of course, you could fight it, but the attorneys told us frankly that you’d have no legal ground-”

“There’s nothing I’d want to fight,” Emma said quietly. “If that’s what my grandmother wanted, it would seem she made her choices.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Emma,” her father said heavily. “Just call Reed. Whatever rift you had, I’m sure it’s mendable. You’re both reasonable people, hardly children anymore. Everyone has arguments. I can’t imagine either of you doing something that wasn’t redeemable.”

Her dad’s voice seemed to fade, as if he were talking from a distance. She saw his lips moving, saw her mother’s lips moving.

They were both talking to her at the same time, quickly and urgently.

Emma had the sudden foolish feeling that someone had just smacked her upside the head. No one had, not physically. But the shock of it all finally sank in.

If she didn’t marry before her thirtieth birthday, she’d lose everything. Color. She knew how much money she owed on the gallery, knew it still wasn’t paying for itself-not the way she’d chosen to run it. All this time, she’d thought she could indulge her belief that the gallery was for the community’s benefit instead of for chasing a profit. She’d wanted to expose Eastwick to new artists and new ideas, to all kinds of art and beauty, even if those choices didn’t pay her back financially. She could have run the gallery differently, but she’d been so positive she had that massive trust fund coming to support it and herself.

And all this time she’d happily volunteered with troubled teenagers through Eastwick Cares and the little kids through the grief center. Because of her financial security, she’d been able to give her time without worrying about getting paid.

Her clothes, her jewelry, the skiing week in Vail and renting a yacht in Italy…for sure, she’d lived indulgently. But there’d never been a reason to budget. Or to learn how to budget. If she hadn’t lived so darn extravagantly, maybe she’d have the money socked away to save her gallery and everything else. But she didn’t. Because she’d never thought she needed to.

She lifted a hand in a gesture asking her parents to stop talking. She couldn’t hear them anyway. She couldn’t seem to hear anything right now, except for the thudding drum in the pit of her stomach. “I need some time to think about this,” she said. “I’m going to go upstairs now.”

She didn’t wait for them to agree or not, just left the room. Until she reached the bottom of the stairs, she wasn’t aware her father had followed her. David touched her shoulder to make her turn around.

“Emma,” he said quietly, “I just don’t understand how you could be so selfish.”

“Selfish?” The accusation confused her, when she was the one who’d just had her whole life thrown in the wind. But of course, that wasn’t completely true. “Dad, I realize that calling the wedding off is upsetting for you and Mom. But the marriage would have been a terrible mistake. Neither of us was going to be happy.”

“Maybe you believe that. But if you can’t be happy with a good man, maybe you damn well better redefine happiness. No one gets everything they want in life.”

He sounded more like an army commander than a father. But then, he always had. And as always, she could feel her stomach knotting up. “I never thought that,” she said quietly and tried to turn away-but her father wasn’t through.

“We’ve supported you in everything you ever wanted. Your education. Your art gallery. Have you ever asked me for anything I didn’t willingly give you? And your mother. Were you even thinking of her? Mark my words, Emma. If your mother goes on another binge, it’ll be on you.”

This time it was her father who whipped around and strode away from her.

For the second time in two days she found her nerves jittery and her head pounding. She climbed the stairs, hoping that if she just sat alone, she’d get a better grip… A good theory, but it didn’t work worth beans.

Her suite of rooms was decorated in apricot and taupe. Several years before, her mother had surprised her by redoing the rooms. The furnishings were elegant and expensive and thoughtfully chosen. They just weren’t colors or furniture that Emma would ever have chosen. Yet she’d never objected, because who knew what was going to send her mom climbing back into a bottle.

Emma sank on the double bed, feeling disoriented…and unaccountably angry. All her life she’d been the peacemaker in the family. All her life she’d tried never to rock the boat, especially because the threat of causing her mother to drink was ever-present. She was on the fund-raising committee at the club because her mother wanted a Dearborn doing that prestigious job. She’d never moved completely out of the house because her mother claimed to need her, claimed she couldn’t bear up to David’s critical, judgmental attitude. Her father counted on her to be hostess for all the Dearborn social events because they were both wary of any pressure put on Diana.

Emma closed her eyes, feeling the thick humid air drifting from the west window. The frightening part was that the threats were always true. A hundred times Emma had told herself that her parents needed to resolve their problems between themselves. But the same thing happened over and over-when Emma failed to step in, didn’t intervene when her mother needed help or play diplomat between her parents, her mom did tumble down the alcoholic hill again.

In the last two days Emma had tried to do the wild thing and change roles. Take charge of her life. Stand up for herself. Redefine what was important to her.

The result seemed to be a complete shambles. The latest-the loss of her trust fund-kept slapping in her mind like mini shock waves. It wasn’t wealth that mattered to her, but the trust fund had represented security. Independence. Freedom.

Now she opened her eyes, looked around the pale apricot walls and felt them closing in on her.

This morning she’d discovered the wonder, the joy of being wildly in love. But now those moments with Garrett seemed as if they’d taken place on another planet. Claustrophobia seemed to lock the air out of her lungs. She felt so trapped she could hardly breathe. She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to get a grip. Her world had just been completely tipped on its axis, so naturally she felt thrown. Only this was more than thrown.

She had no idea what to do next.

She only knew that she felt completely alone. And lost.

Before turning in the driveway of the Baldwin mansion, Garrett stopped at the roadside and used his cell phone to call Emma.

The first two times he’d called, he’d gotten Josh at Color. Josh had promised to leave a message for Emma on her desk, but he didn’t know her schedule. Nothing odd about that. Emma was a busy woman. But this was the third time Garrett had been unable to reach her.

He told himself it was idiotic to worry. It was just that this morning…Hell, he was still high from last night and this morning. Obviously making love with a woman right after she’d broken an engagement was terrible timing. But he’d never before felt euphoria like this. A connection like this. A kite-high, heart-soaring thrill of a feeling like this.

For a long time he’d believed that selfish, driven workaholics like himself were doomed to be single. What woman would want them? They were annoying personalities.

But damn, she hadn’t made him feel annoying. She’d made him feel like the most powerful, sexy lover in the universe-past and present. And no, he hadn’t gone plumb off the deep end and assumed she was ready to marry him.

But in his gut, that was on his mind. The M word. He’d never wanted it before, never felt the need or push. But suddenly he couldn’t get that hope out of his head, and Emma was the difference. Emma was…

Stop this, he mentally ordered himself. He pocketed his cell phone, climbed out of the car and strode up to the front door of Bunny Baldwin’s mansion. He didn’t want to stop thinking about Emma, but he still had miles to go this day. Obsessing about Emma wasn’t helping. Until he got those tasks done, he couldn’t see Emma anyway.

He knocked on the door, waited. Moments later, a tidy gray-haired woman answered. “Can I help you?” she asked.

“You’re Edith Carter?”

“Yes.”

“Mrs. Carter, I don’t need to come in. I realize you don’t know me, but I was told you were Bunny Baldwin’s housekeeper for years.” The gentle-eyed woman nodded. “I’m Garrett Keating.”

Immediately she relaxed. “Of course. I know the Keating family. For a moment, I was afraid you were another one of those reporters, trying to dig into more of Mrs. Baldwin’s private life.”

“No, honestly. I only stopped because I hoped there was a chance you might know something about my sister, Caroline Keating-Spence. She’s been in the hospital. I’ve been trying to put together a picture of what happened in the weeks before she got so sick, and no one seems to know anything. I heard Caroline was often over here-”

Edith nodded, looking thoughtful. “Yes, she was. She and Abby-Mrs. Baldwin’s daughter-were friends. The whole group of Debs came over quite often. Bunny loved having the girls around.”

“Did you happen to hear anything about my sister? Any gossip or bad news, anything at all?”

“You sound so worried, Mr. Keating,” she said compassionately. “I wish I had some information for you.”

“But you don’t?”

Edith hesitated. “I don’t know if you knew my Bunny, but she was interested in everything happening in Eastwick. Some said she was nosy, but the truth was that she simply cared about everything and everyone. I don’t know where she got all her news, but by and by, she just seemed to know everyone’s secrets. That’s how she came to write the Eastwick Social Diary.”

“Yes,” Garrett said, wishing this had to do with his sister but not seeing how.

“Well, the thing is, now all those diaries are missing. Her daughter, Abby, thinks there was information in those journals that someone might have killed her mother for. The police are looking into it. There’s no proof. Yet. But…”

Garrett waited.

“I’m just saying, Mr. Keating, that if those diaries would just surface, you might find something about your sister…or someone related to your sister. Something that might be the source of her problem. Because if something was going on in Eastwick, Bunny knew it.”

“But right now you don’t know where those diaries are.”

Edith shook her head. “I’m sorry. No one does.”

Once warmed up, Edith went on and on. She’d obviously deeply cared about her employer and needed to tell someone how traumatized she’d been by Bunny’s death. Apparently Bunny had been only fifty-two, healthy and full of energy. Although she’d loved gossip, she’d never been vicious.

“Never, Mr. Keating,” Edith vowed. “Yes, she dished the dirt on the well-heeled. But she never told a lie, never invented or embellished. She only told the truth. And personally I think she made a huge effort not to hurt anyone who might have been innocent.”

“I’m sure she did,” Garrett agreed, although he was starting to feel desperate that he was ever going to escape. He’d hoped he’d hear something, anything, about his sister Caroline, but Edith seemed fixed on the night her employer had died.

“I found her, I did. Still haven’t gotten over the shock, probably never will. In my head, I still see her lying there. I was right upstairs, putting away linens in the upstairs closet, when I suddenly heard this thud. As if a chair had been knocked over. That kind of thud-”

“I understand,” Garrett said swiftly.

“Well, that thud was my Bunny. Lying on the floor in the study. It just didn’t make sense.” Tears welled in Edith’s eyes.

“It sounds horrible.” Garrett tried to sound sympathetic.

“Oh, it was, it was. I can’t get it out of my mind. And I’ve stayed on in the house because Abby asked me to. Abby’s her daughter, of course, I think I told you that-”

“Yes, I knew that.”

“Well, no one knows what’s going to happen to the Baldwin mansion yet. So it still needs caretaking. And right now I don’t think anyone else would want to live here because of what happened. I hardly do myself, because everywhere I turn, I remember her lying in the study like that. She was more than an employer, you know. She was a friend. A fascinating person. It’s unbelievable that someone would kill her. Actually murder her. I keep trying to imagine what kind of secret she knew that was that bad-”

He turned the key on his car engine, grateful to be free. Yet listening to Edith had put an edgy beat in his pulse. He’d never personally known Bunny Baldwin, was hard-pressed to invest interest in a woman who’d lived for gossip. But the secret business worried him, because his sister was obviously hiding some kind of secret that had caused her depression-and her feeling of guilt.

He’d checked out Edith, knowing that woman was a long shot, but he was starting to get damned desperate. No information seemed to surface about his sister. He needed to help Caroline, needed to know she was safe, before he could possibly move back to New York.

Instead he seemed to be getting more and more embroiled in Eastwick-which he swore he’d never do.

Halfway down the street, he pulled off to dial Emma again.

Still no answer. That didn’t mean she wasn’t there, of course. She could have turned off the ringer, simply because she had a busy day. He now had a good idea how busy she really was, how crowded her life was.

Still, he wanted to hear her voice. Wanted to talk to her.

Wanted to know she was okay after making love.

Wanted to know how he was going to react after hearing her voice again.

Garrett told himself he was just frustrated he hadn’t reached her, not worried. One way or another, he was determined to contact her today, though, even if he had to track her down all the way to Timbuktu.

More immediately, though, seeing his sister had to be his first priority. Caroline was getting sprung from the hospital-against his better judgment.

He found her still in her hospital room but sitting up, all dressed and chomping at the bit. “You said you’d be here by three!”

“And it’s a quarter to.”

“I know, I know. But I started to worry that you wouldn’t come. I just want to go home, Gar.” She wrapped her arms around his neck for a hug and promptly started crying. Hell and double hell. She felt skinnier than a reed, and he hated it when his sister cried. He always wanted to fix the problem. Right now. Yesterday.

“Would you quit it?” A guy could talk to his sister that way. When she didn’t immediately quit-Caroline had never listened to him-he patted her back, over and over. And over.

Finally she quit snuffling and stepped away. He handed her a tissue-she never had one. “Get me out of here,” she begged him.

“I will. But you have to do the wheelchair thing.”

“That’s stupid. I’m not sick.”

But her spirit was sick. He could see the darkness behind her eyes, in the nervous way she moved, in the exhaustion in her posture-even when he was wheeling her downstairs and bundling her-and five million flowers-into the car.

“Griff’s due home tomorrow,” she told him.

“I know. The parents told me,”

“I don’t want him to know…about the suicide attempt.”

At least she was using the word now. “Caroline, come on. You surely realize that Mom and Dad already told him. They had to give him a reason to cancel his trip and fly home.”

“But I didn’t want him to do that! And they should have asked me before calling him!”

Garrett didn’t try arguing with her. The subject was too sticky to begin with. Truthfully, their parents hadn’t asked Griff to come home for their daughter’s sake so much as they’d hoped Griff would do something about Caroline to stop all the talk. God forbid anyone in Eastwick should discover that Keatings had troubles just like everyone else.

“The thing is, I want Griff to hear about this from me. Before he hears it from strangers or the Eastwick gossipmongers-Wait a minute. Who’s that woman? What’s going on?”

“That woman,” Garrett said, “is Gloria.” As they walked through his sister’s front door, Garrett braced for trouble as he introduced his sister to the woman he’d hired. Gloria was dressed to look like a housekeeper, but essentially Garrett had hired her as security until Caroline’s husband actually arrived home and took charge.

No matter what Caroline said or thought, there was no way he was leaving her alone. Not after a suicide attempt. Period. As far as Garrett was concerned, that was the end of the argument-but a half hour later, Caroline was still giving him grief.

By then he’d installed her on the couch in the den with the remote, a cup of tea and a frantically lonesome bichon frise with the ghastly name of Bubbles. Garrett disappeared from sight for a few minutes while Caroline and Gloria started talking, giving them a chance to get to know each other.

As he wandered around, he remembered how much he’d always loved Caro’s place. She loved rich, deep colors-burgundies and emeralds and teals. She always chose furniture a guy could sink into, made things comfortable. He never had to kick off his shoes, never had to fret if he was going to spill anything. She was flexible in so many ways, but man, when she played the stubborn card, it was damn hard to budge her.

When he had her alone in the den again, the same fight started up-but this time Garrett dug in his heels. “Look, Griff’s coming home, which means you’re out of time, kiddo. It’s got to come out, whatever the hell trouble you’re in. So out with it-and this time I mean it. I’m not leaving until you talk.”

She shook her head, the tears already welling up. Her crying made him feel lower than mud. “Caro. This is stupid. What could you possibly have done to feel so guilty?”

He racked his brain for the kind of shameful thing that was so big she couldn’t tell him. “A gambling addiction, something like that?”

“For heaven’s sake. Of course not.”

He frowned. “Could you have stolen something-?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Garrett. You know I’d never do that.” Finally he pestered her enough that she came out with it, although her tone had lowered to the most painful of whispers. “I had an affair.”

He sank down on the ottoman next to her, relieved to finally have the secret out in the open. “Okay. That’s lousy. About the last thing I’d expect you to do, knowing how strongly you feel about fidelity. But all the same…I still don’t understand how you get from a mistake to feeling driven to a suicide attempt.”

Her eyes started glistening again. “Because I’m in love with Griff. My own husband. How crazy is that?”

Garrett wished Emma were here. She’d know how to handle a conversation like this. He sure as hell didn’t. And now that Caroline had turned on the faucet, she finally willingly spilled more. They’d had trouble in their marriage, which Garrett already knew. But they’d mended the breach. And now they were like newlyweds again. In love. Deliriously happy.

“I would never cheat on him now, Garrett. But at the time, I thought we were separated. Fighting. I was certain we were headed for divorce court. It was still a stupid thing to do, sleeping with someone I barely knew, but-”

Garrett didn’t need any more details. “So this was when you two were separated-”

“Exactly. But if Griff finds out…” She shook her head. “I know how he’ll feel. Everything we’ve built back up will be destroyed. We’re both trying hard, and it’s working. But if there’s a trust issue like that, I know I’ll lose him.” Out poured the tears again.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Garrett said. “Why does he ever have to know?”

And then, finally, came the crux of the crisis. “Because I’m being blackmailed. That’s why I took the pills. Because I can’t keep paying. And I can’t let Griff know. So there’s no way out of this, Garrett.”

Shock locked his tongue-but only for a second. “The hell there isn’t. Who’s blackmailing you? Who, Caroline?”

She either didn’t know or she wouldn’t say. Garrett wanted to focus totally on the blackmailer but realized damn fast that that wasn’t an option. Right now his sister’s frail mental state was more important.

“Caro,” he tried to tell her, “Griff knows you. He knows your background. Our parents were hardly role models for a loving relationship or a marriage, now, were they? I think Griff will understand. He sure as hell won’t like it. But if he knows you at all…if he loves you any way it matters…it’ll be all right.”

She seemed calmed down before he left. But by the time he was walking back to his car, the sun was dipping in the west, a shivery breeze chilling the air.

It was true, what he’d said to Caro. Their parents had been rotten role models. Neither he nor Caro had felt loved or protected as kids. Their parents were devoted to each other on the surface, but their values were all tangled up with influence and affluence and what others thought of them. It wasn’t the kind of love Garrett had ever wanted-in fact, he’d always associated marriage with a more painful loneliness than being alone.

He didn’t know that had changed until coming home. Until reunited with Emma. Until being with Emma, really being with her like last night.

Through all the stresses and strains of the day, a handful of maybes kept whispering in his mind. Maybe he could be more than a moneymaking machine. Maybe he could have a private life, be successful in a relationship, create a different kind of marriage…with the right woman.

It was crazy to hope, but there it was. Being with Emma had put the seed in his mind, his heart, and damned if he could stop it from growing.

The instant he got behind the wheel and started the engine, he dialed her cell phone again. This time, finally, he caught up with her.

He didn’t waste time on greetings or chitchat. Just said swiftly, “Thank God I finally reached you. I’ll be there in ten minutes, fifteen max, Emma.”

And then he shot out of his sister’s driveway and into the night.