Heartwishes Part 23

"I'm trying to figure out where to begin."

"That's my problem too," she said. "I want to know about the Heartwishes Stone, but I think I need to go back to the beginning, to the first Frazier who came to the U.S."

"Was that a subtle way to tell me to start at the beginning?"

"I didn't think it was subtle."

Colin didn't smile as she'd hoped he would. Finally, he said, "The real, basic truth is that my relationship with Jean hasn't been the usual one, and I'm concerned that if I tell you, you'll think less of me."

"I believe that people are the sum of what they've been through in their lives. From what I've seen, you dedicate your life to helping others. If whatever you went through with Jean helped to lead you to that, then it couldn't be too bad."

He looked away from the road for a moment to glance at her. "I like that philosophy," he said and thought, And I like you. "Okay, here goes."

As he drove he began to talk, and he didn't have to tell her that he'd never told the story to anyone else before. Her impression from having seen him with his friends and the town residents was that people thought Colin Frazier didn't have any problems in life. He grew up comfortably well off, with no money difficulties. He'd been great at sports all through school, made good grades, and now he had a job he loved. What could be wrong?

But as Gemma listened, she heard a deeper story. Colin tried to be lighthearted when he said that his father had "talked him into" working for him, but Gemma had met Mr. Frazier, and her impression was that he could be a tyrant. From what Colin was telling her, Peregrine Frazier had bullied, badgered, and belittled his eldest son into taking a job he hated.

Colin told how bad he was at the job. His example of "bad" was when a single mother with three kids came in with a clunker with 140,000 miles on it. Colin set her up with a car for less than the dealership had paid for it. His father had deducted the discrepancy from Colin's paycheck. "My father believes in teaching lessons and being fair. He would have done the same thing to any of his other employees, so of course he'd do it to his son."

"Of course," Gemma said, but she didn't agree. Colin was there as a favor to his father, so shouldn't he have returned some favors?

Colin went on to tell of meeting Jean, and of being so in awe of her beauty and her general demeanor that he'd hardly said a word. "If she hadn't called me, I would never have seen her again."

From Colin's mood today, Gemma wondered if that would have been a bad thing.

When he said that he'd moved to Richmond to live in an apartment with Jean, there was sadness in his voice. But when he told of helping her with her cases, his voice came alive. "I learned a lot about the law, how it worked, and what could and couldn't be done, and I even did some footwork for the cases."

Gemma wanted to say "She used you as a free paralegal and a PI," but she didn't. She did say, "Roy said you were good at solving mysteries. Did you figure out any of Jean's?"

Colin gave a shrug of modesty. "A few. Now and then. Not many. I remember one where Jean was defending a man who said he was in another state when his wife was murdered, but his credit card receipts showed that he was near the scene of the crime. I posed as a truck driver and asked some questions at a place where the man's card had been used. I found out that it was his mistress who'd used the card. She knocked over a display so no one would pay attention to how she signed the receipt. It was a revenge killing because he'd told her he'd decided to go back to his wife."

"Looks like you were doing the work of a sheriff before you actually were one."

Colin gave his first smile of the day. "You're making me remember things I haven't thought of in years."

"So when did you break up with Jean? The first time, that is?"

"When the bad of my life outweighed the good. Dad and I were fighting because for six months I'd been almost giving cars away."

"Did he charge you for them?"

"Oh yeah," Colin said, "but I didn't care."

"Because Jean's salary was supporting the two of you?" Gemma didn't realize that she was frowning.

"No. She kept her salary. I paid for everything except her clothes. If I'd done that, I'd have been bankrupted." He obviously meant to make Gemma laugh, but she didn't.

"I'm confused," Gemma said. "Your father debited your paycheck, but you supported Jean? Oh, wait. I bet you have a trust fund set up by an ancestor."

Colin told her about the software program that was now being used by many of the car dealerships across the country.

She took a moment to digest that information. "So I guess you can afford a house and furniture." He was looking at her to see how this new information would affect her, but she kept her face blank. "What happened with you and Jean?"

He went on to tell about the earlier breakup, how he'd just walked out. "It was cowardly of me," he said. "If I'd stayed and talked to her back then, maybe I could have kept her from thinking what she told me last night."

At last, Colin got to what Jean said that had so upset him.

Gemma listened to every word he told her and marveled at how Jean had twisted everything around so she was the victim of Colin. Gemma had to work to keep her anger down. She wanted to point out that it was no wonder Jean hated losing him. Where was she going to find another man to pay the rent, help solve cases, and keep her entertained at night?

Gemma thought the wise thing to do would be to keep her true opinions to herself.

"One minute she was complaining that I'm too good," Colin said, "and the next she was telling me that I'm the personification of evil."

"So if she knew what was going on, that you hated your job, and as she said, you were hiding in her life, then why was she trying to get you back? What does she like about you?"

"I look good in a tuxedo," he said.

Gemma didn't laugh at his attempt at a joke. "What else?"

Colin gave her a suggestive glance. "She always said I was good in the sack. I have a bit of endurance."

"Wow," Gemma said, her eyes wide. "Are you talking four minutes or five?"

Colin burst into laughter. "Gemma, you're going to unman me."

She smiled. "At least I made you laugh."

He took her hand and kissed the back of it. "Thanks," he said. "I know Jean was hurt and angry, but . . ."

"Her remarks still cut deep," Gemma said. "You know, of course, that her contradicting herself showed she was lying."

"You think so?"

"Definitely." She paused. "How are you going to deal with your parents? They like Jean a lot. When your dad finds out that she won't be cooking for him anymore, he's going to be very upset."

"I indoctrinated Dad to pain when I quit working at the dealership."

"You carry a lot of guilt, don't you?" Gemma said.

"You don't? You've never felt bad for disappointing someone?"

Gemma didn't say anything.

"Come on," he said. "I'm doing some soul baring here, so you can too."

"When my father died, my mother was devastated. She loved him completely and absolutely-and depended on him for everything. She wanted me to take over his household duties."

"Fix the car, that kind of thing?"

"More or less. She wanted me to pay the bills, remember when the insurance needed to be paid. When the kitchen drain broke, she wanted me to call the plumber. When I said I had too much homework to do all those things, she got angry. She said I wasn't much use as a daughter."

"How old were you?"

"Twelve."

"That's way too young for that," Colin said. "She should have been helping you."

"'Shoulds' don't always happen. In fact, in my life they never do. I couldn't handle what my mother wanted, so I retreated into books. I read constantly, studied, researched. Besides, I was missing my dad so much that it was like a disease spreading inside me. I had trouble thinking coherently."

"What did your mother do?"

"She turned to my younger sister, who lived up to all Mom's hopes and dreams. Together, they figured out how to run the household." Gemma looked at him. "See? I know a lot about guilt."

"You know what I think?" he said. "I think your mother is the one who should bear the guilt, not you. You and your sister should have been her first concern, and she had no right to dump adult responsibilities onto her kids, either of you."

"Thanks," Gemma said. "And I think every word Jean said about you was a lie. She just wanted you back so much that she said anything she could think of to make you feel like you couldn't leave her."

"Yeah," Colin said, smiling. He was silent for a moment, then said, "So what kind of furniture should we get?"

She looked him up and down, at the size of him. His muscles were still engorged from his workout.

Colin noted the way she was looking at him and his eyelids lowered in a seductive way.

"Strong," she said.

"Me?" he said. "I do all right. I once benched-"

"No. I mean we should get really strong furniture."

Again, Colin laughed. "You're not going to let me indulge my ego, are you? First you knock both s.e.x and me down, and now you're saying I might break the furniture just by sitting on it."

"I guess you could prove me wrong on both counts," she said softly.

"I would love to do that," he said. "Genuinely and deeply love to."

She looked out the truck window to hide the warm glow that came to her face.

"Thanks," he said.

She looked at him.

"I really mean it, Gemma. Thank you for listening. I didn't sleep at all last night and I was at Mike's gym at five."

"By yourself?"

"Yes. Bad, huh?"

"Very bad. If a heavy bench press slips, it can kill you."

He was still holding her hand. "I guess you'll have to go with me next time."

"I'll be there at six-thirty tomorrow."

"I'll be waiting," he said as he pulled into a parking lot.

As Gemma had figured, the furniture store was an enormous warehouse that seemed to go on forever. She couldn't resist telling him her dilemma about what to wear.

"You guessed right," he said as he stepped down, then pulled a thick roll of blueprints from behind the seat.

Gemma got out of the truck and walked around to stand beside him. "How much furniture do you want to buy?"

He handed her a plastic pouch containing an architect's scale, mechanical pencils, and some triangles. "Know how to use those?"

"Only vaguely. You're not planning to furnish the whole house today, are you?"

"I am," he said. "I never want to spend another night in that apartment of mine and I'd like to get this over with. Besides, by now everyone in Edilean knows I bought the house, so why try to keep it a secret? You have any favorite colors?"

"Whatever color the book jacket is, that's what I like." She was feeling a bit like she wanted to say she'd wait in the truck. The only reason she'd ever seen the inside of a furniture store was because she'd gone with her friends before they got married. "Colin," she said tentatively, "I really don't know-"

He opened the gla.s.s door, and she saw what looked to be acres of furniture. Overhead ceiling fans whirred. To the right was a long row of antique shops; to the left were light fixtures.

"Come on, Ranford, buck up your courage," Colin said.

"I don't know where to start."

"I want a couch," Colin said firmly. "Something I can take naps on."

"I don't think your living room is big enough to hold that," she said without cracking a smile.

Colin put his hand to his heart. "Wounded again. Come on or I'll hide your gloves and you won't be able to box."

Gemma put her fists up beside her temples. "Then I'll take you on with bare knuckles."

"May I help you?" asked a woman behind them.

Embarra.s.sed, Gemma dropped her fists.

"We want to furnish a whole house today," Colin said. "Free delivery, right?"

"Of course," the woman said, smiling. "Where do you want to start?"

"Couch," Colin and Gemma said in unison.

As the saleswoman started walking, they followed. "Leather or fabric? Rolled arms or straight? High back or low?"

"Fabric, rolled, high," Gemma said.

At the same time, Colin said, "Leather, straight, low."