Heartwishes Part 4

They were quiet for a while, then Gemma asked him about his brothers.

"Real pests," he said, but there was so much love in his voice that it was almost embarra.s.sing. He talked while they ate, telling her about his family, and she saw how close they were to one another.

He told her of his brothers Lanny and Pere, who worked in the family car business. He talked of how the development of Shamus's artistic abilities was of major concern to their family as they wanted the best possible art schooling for him. "Our mother interviews universities as though she's a general planning a battle. So far, none of them are good enough for her precious baby."

Lastly, he spoke of his sister, Ariel, who would soon be returning to Edilean to work as a doctor. Colin's chest seemed to swell in pride.

"I envy you," she said when he finished.

"What about your family?"

"I have a mother and a sister and they're exactly alike. They laugh over the same things, call each other every day. They're a pair."

"How do you fit in with them?"

"I don't," she said. "My father and I were best buddies, and after he died when I was twelve, I . . ." She shrugged. "Unhappy memories. The good news is that my sister married a rich man-he has his own plumbing company-and she sends me truly lovely gifts. All I have to do to repay her is babysit for whole weeks at a time."

Colin laughed. "So what kind of gifts does she send you?"

"A Kindle, some sports equipment, top-of-the-line laptop, and my BlackBerry. She said if I got this job she'd send me an iPad."

"It sounds like she cares about you," Colin said.

"It's mutual, but we aren't chummy. She has two children and wants a third. She and Mom are worried that I'll never get married."

"Whatever you do, don't let her talk to my mother. My poor sister got so tired of my mother's constant talk of having babies that last year Ariel swore she'd have her tubes tied."

"A drastic threat."

"My sister is the epitome of a 'drama queen.'"

"So who is your 'favorite little man' and isn't Merlin's Farm the place where those paintings were found last year?"

Colin's quick laugh nearly made him choke on his sandwich. "You really listen, don't you?"

"I read about the farm on the town Web site, and I like to find out things. Is it?"

"Yes," he said. "As you seem to know already, Merlin's Farm-"

"Built in 1674, wasn't it?"

Colin shook his head at her in wonder. "I have a feeling you could tell me who the English king was then and what was going on in the world."

She could, but she wasn't interested in what she already knew. "The paintings caused a stir in the historical world, so of course I heard about them. They belong to the owner of Merlin's Farm . . . I don't remember her name."

"Sara Shaw, my cousin. She married the detective who found the paintings. They were hidden away in a secret room in the old house. You'll have to see it. The way the room was built behind the fireplace was really ingenious."

Gemma's eyes lit up, but she said nothing, just willing him to tell her more.

"Anyway," Colin continued, "Mike and Sara still live in Fort Lauderdale. They'll stay there until his retirement in a couple of years, then they'll move back here permanently."

"The paintings . . . ?" she prompted.

"Oh yeah. They were done in the 1700s by an ancestor of ours-"

"Charles Albert Yates," Gemma said.

"I'm sure you're right," Colin said. "Joce-the woman who owns Edilean Manor-thinks they were painted by a woman. She-"

"Wow!" Gemma said, her eyes wide. "A woman went down the San Juan River in 1799 and made paintings of the flora and fauna? What an extraordinary find!"

Colin laughed, but he was impressed with her memory and her knowledge. "You and Joce and Sara have to get to know one another." He finished his sandwich while looking at her, and he could see that she was thinking about the paintings and how a woman may have made them. He wasn't going to say so but he was very pleased that she'd not asked about the value of the paintings. The discovery of them had made international news and been reported by the BBC and in Paris. For a while the town had been inundated with tourists asking questions. With just a few exceptions, the only thing people had asked about was the money. How much were the paintings worth? Colin had grown so tired of the questions that he'd mumble, "Millions," then leave and let his deputy, Roy, handle them.

But Gemma didn't seem in the least interested in the financial side of the find-and he liked that very much.

She finished her sandwich. "And Sara is Ellie's daughter? And your 'favorite little man' who helped her?"

"You're going to be great at the research!" Colin said. "Yes, Sara is Ellie's daughter, and Mr. Lang is the caretaker of Merlin's Farm. He's in his mid-eighties now and we look out for him. When Mike and Sara are here, he moves into a house they remodeled for him." Colin wasn't going to go into telling Gemma about Mr. Lang's endless complaints about the tourists and having to live outside the old house, which he thought of as his.

Gemma wanted to ask what Ellie had meant about "club ladies" being after the old man, but she thought she'd asked enough questions.

She stood up. "Mind if I wander around the rest of the house and have a look?"

"Be my guest." He was very pleased that she liked the place so much.

She went down the hall and peeked into the three bedrooms and two baths. The master suite opened into the garden. She unlocked the door and stepped outside. She didn't know much about plants, but she'd put money on it that the trees weren't the usual ones you could purchase at the local shop. No, this place looked like a miniature botanical garden, like a place a person would pay to see.

As Gemma thought of all she'd seen of the town, of this man, his family and now of his house, she couldn't help a feeling of longing. Since her father had died, she hadn't felt she was truly at home anywhere. To belong somewhere and to someone was Gemma's deepest desire.

What would it be like to grow up in a town where people knew your name? she wondered. More than that, knew you as a person? In the grocery those people had known Colin well enough to drop a baby into his arms. Even the children knew that if Colin was handed a broken toy he would fix it. She heard his footsteps in the hallway.

"Are you okay?" he asked from behind her. "Nothing's wrong, is it?"

He had noticed the sad look in her eyes, and she quickly changed it. "No. Just the opposite. I was admiring the view. Your garden looks larger than the usual backyard."

"It's a couple of acres."

"Your cousin Luke couldn't have done the garden too?"

"Yes he did. And he's also Luke Adams."

Gemma's face looked blank.

"Luke Adams? Writes novels?" Colin asked.

"Sorry. I never read fiction. No time."

He grinned. "That makes for a change. Usually when Luke's pen name is mentioned, people nearly swoon."

"Swoon, do they?" she asked, smiling. "I think you've been reading the doc.u.ments your mother bought."

"Actually, I did try to look at some of them. But then my phone would ring and I'd have to leave. Or sometimes I fell asleep. It's difficult for me to imagine someone wanting a job like the one you want. On the days I have to stay in the office, I get antsy." He pulled his buzzing cell phone out of his pocket and looked at it. "It's a text from Mom and she says Jean is there. I think we better go."

"Certainly!" Gemma said. "I can't afford to offend your mother again."

"I don't think you ever have."

"I wish I were as sure." When she got to the kitchen door, she turned to look at him. "I've had a lovely time today. I enjoyed meeting the people and especially seeing your house. Thank you."

"You're welcome," he said. "Want to drive back?"

"About as much as I want to jump onto the top of a speeding train."

"Come on, then," he said, "let's go and see if Kirk has made off with my mother's jewelry."

"Or if Isla has eloped with your brother."

"Shamus would never allow that."

Laughing, they left the house together.

3.

GEMMA STRETCHED OUT on the bed in Colin's childhood room and looked around her. It was still the habitat of a teenage boy, but instead of posters of football players or other athletes, he'd hung pictures of men Gemma didn't recognize. But she had an idea they were law enforcement agents, real ones, not actors who played them on TV. Considering what she was seeing, she wondered why he hadn't become an FBI agent or joined the CIA. But then, she'd already seen the answer. He loved the little town of Edilean and the people in it.

After they'd left his newly purchased house, he'd driven them straight back to his family's home. Hours earlier, when Gemma arrived, Mrs. Frazier had greeted her at the front door and immediately led her back to the guesthouse and shown her the doc.u.ments. Gemma hadn't been given time to get her suitcase out of the car, so she had no idea where she was staying in the big Frazier house.

Colin told her that he'd asked his mother to put her in his old room. "There's an outside staircase, so you can come and go as you please," he said. "And it's on the third floor, so you'll have privacy."

"Your own private stairs? You sound like you were a very busy young man," she said, teasing.

He didn't seem to see her words as a joke. "I was called out so often in the middle of the night that when I was in the tenth grade, my father had the stairs put up so I wouldn't wake the family."

She didn't understand what he meant. "You weren't acting as sheriff when you were in high school, were you?"

"No, but I tend to volunteer for things. And, besides, I've always been . . ." He hesitated.

"As big as a bulldozer?"

"More or less," he said, grinning. "When I was fourteen, I used to go out with the firefighters and hold the hose."

"Isn't that illegal for someone that young?"

"Yeah, but after I slipped out a window six times and ran into a burning building three times, everyone gave up trying to make me stay home. I think they gave me the hose to hold just to anchor me in place."

"I guess that makes sense. So your family put you on the top floor and built a staircase just for you?"

"That they did."

As they pulled into the driveway, he told her that Lanny had already carried her suitcase up and she could rest for a while. "Jean is cooking dinner tonight."

"Is she a friend of yours?"

"Of our whole family. She's a lawyer who works in Richmond and she likes to cook special meals."

"I look forward to meeting her."

Minutes later, he stopped at the bottom of a tall staircase that went up the entire side of the house. She could tell that he meant to escort her up, but she didn't want him to. She liked him so much, was so very attracted to him, and she didn't want to do anything embarra.s.sing. Besides, it was better to keep a distance from the son of someone she hoped would employ her. "I can find my own way around," she said.

"I'll just show you-"

"No, really. I'd like some time to go over my notes."

"All right," he said, but he sounded disappointed. "Come down about six. We'll have drinks, then dinner."

"Sure," she said as she started up the stairs, but he kept standing there. She realized he was waiting to see her safely up the stairs. Only when she got to the door did he turn and walk away.

Now, as Gemma lay on the bed and looked about the room, she thought about what she'd seen and heard that day. It had been a lot. First there were the untouched doc.u.ments that had made her want to murder someone just to ensure that she got the job. Then Colin had come to the guesthouse and she'd been with him ever since.

How different his life had been from hers, she thought. He'd always lived in one place. He'd probably gone to elementary school with people who were his friends now. And then there were his many relatives.

As for Gemma, since she'd entered the university seven years before, her life had been transient. It wasn't so because she moved, but at the school everyone around her had come and gone. Over the years, she'd had four close women friends. Each one had declared she was going for her Ph.D., but one by one, her friends had found men, married, then dropped out. Now all four of the women had children-and their correspondence had dwindled to an e-mail every three or four months.

As for the few men in Gemma's life, they too had moved away. One of them had begged her to go with him. But she'd told him she was determined to stay where she was, that she had a plan for her life and wasn't going to deviate from it. The truth was, she hadn't been in love with him and didn't want to go.

From the beginning, her goals had never changed. After she was awarded her doctorate, and after she had a job at a good school, she planned to start looking about for a permanent life, which meant a husband, a home, and a family of her own.

Married to a man like Colin, she thought. Her first impression of him was that he was a cross between the Incredible Hulk and one of those cowboys from a black-and-white TV show from the 1960s. Women were dumping babies on him one moment and asking for his protection in the next. If the women hadn't been talking to him about serious matters, she would have thought he was the town babysitter-and ancient.

But he was far from old. He was young and good-looking and . . . her potential employer's son, Gemma reminded herself.

She got off the bed and wandered about the room, looking at Colin's possessions. There was a large trophy on the floor in the corner. OFFENSIVE LINEBACKER, CENTER it read. On the closet door were stapled some ribbons for other sports: swimming, hockey, even one for show jumping a horse.

Must have been a Frisian, she thought as she envisioned the medieval knights riding into battle on their huge, heavy horses. The historian in her knew that Colin would look good in armor.

On top of his chest of drawers was an open box, the kind that expensive jewelry came in. Inside, instead of something intrinsically valuable, was a cheap little metal star with the word SHERIFF across it. From the look of it, it had been played with and carried about for years. The edges were worn down to a smooth dullness.

The toy badge conjured images of a young Colin, probably big even as a toddler, as he proudly wore a sheriff's badge. Smiling, Gemma ran her hand around the star, then glanced at the clock. If she didn't want to be late, she'd better get showered and dressed for dinner.

Thirty minutes later, Gemma looked in the mirror and knew she'd done the best she could. She'd put on light makeup and dark trousers with a teal blue silk shirt. Her shoes were sensible heels and well worn, but polished. She reminded herself that she was trying for a job, not to become a member of the family.

She had her hand on the doork.n.o.b, ready to go into the inside of a house that she'd not seen, but she chickened out. Instead, she ran to the side door, stepped onto the little porch, and ran down the stairs to the ground. Now what? she wondered. Should she go to the front door and ring the bell?