Holly Read online

  “Like the Montgomery family?”

  “Yes. I’ve met some of them. Very nice people, and generous with their donations.”

  “So who owns Belle Chere now?”

  “The Beaumonts. I believe the current owner’s name is Laurence.”

  “Larry Beaumont,” Nick said.

  “Lorrie,” Holly said before she thought and Nick turned to look at her.

  “What?!” she said. “I’ve met him. So what? He’s a nice man and he loves Belle Chere. He’ll be the one to keep it for the next generation.”

  Nick drank his lemonade, his face turned away, staring straight ahead toward the interior of the garage. “What does he look like?”

  “Tall, blond. Good looking, if you like that sort.”

  “And you’re in love with him,” Nick said as he got up to put his plate in the sink.

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Oh? How far is this Belle Chere from where you’re going to meet your parents?”

  Holly’s face turned red.

  “Come on, Latham, what are you up to? And don’t try to make me believe you’re not going after what you want. I saw how determined you were to get to see an old house. If you brave snakes and pits for a piece of rubbish, what would you do to get your beloved Belle Chere?”

  “I wouldn’t do anything. The truth is, I met Lorrie before I ever saw Belle Chere.”

  “And loved both at first sight,” he said, and again her face turned red.

  Smiling, Nick smacked her on her jean-clad fanny. “You want to go with me to see some more houses, or go back to your place and daydream about some old house and some washed-out, blond rich kid?”

  “Hmm,” Holly said, as though she were contemplating the question.

  When Nick picked her up, twirled her around, and made her laugh, it was as though something was released inside her. Hidden away, buried for years, was her secret love for Lorrie Beaumont. Never had she been tempted to tell anyone about him. That summer she’d managed to keep her parents and her stepsister from finding out about him. In fact, at the end of the summer there’d been a dance at the local country club and her father had introduced her to Lorrie and his parents.

  Maybe it was Nick’s teasing or the fact that she never planned to see him again, but she soon found herself telling him about the summer when she was thirteen, the glorious summer she’d spent with Lorrie.

  In fact, once she started, Holly talked so much that she didn’t notice that Nick drove past the last two old houses without stopping. At the end of the road, near the sign that said NO TRESPASSING, Nick pulled Holly from the car.

  “He taught me how to strip paint,” she was saying, “and I can tell you that I’ve used that knowledge hundreds of times since then. One summer in college I was allowed to work with Dr. Abernathy because I already knew enough to be useful to him. If it hadn’t been for Lorrie—Where are you going?” Dazed, she looked around her. Nick had disappeared into the trees.

  Minutes later, he emerged, pulling a beat-up old wooden canoe out of the forest.

  “I saw this a couple of days ago. It looks like it’s in good shape so I thought we might test it out.”

  Holly looked at it dubiously. She’d been on yachts before and the brawny crew members had rowed them to shore, but could Nick?

  He seemed to read her mind. “I can do something besides ride a motorcycle. Get in.”

  She was quiet for a few minutes as Nick pushed the old canoe into the water, then easily used the oars to guide them onto the lake. It was too early in the season, and too cool for the people in the Easter egg–colored houses across the lake, so they were the only people on its smooth surface.

  “So when did you two get together again? As adults?”

  The sun was going down, Holly hadn’t had any sleep for a long time, and she was sexually satisfied in a way she’d never been before. She was dozing off.

  “Latham!” Nick, said sharply, waking her. “Don’t wimp out on me now. You can sleep tomorrow. When did you and your rich boyfriend get together after his summer of free child labor?”

  Languidly, Holly trailed her fingers in the water. “Never. I haven’t seen Lorrie since that summer. Not in person, that is. There are photos and stories about him on the Internet.”

  “You haven’t seen him since you were thirteen years old?” Nick asked, incredulous.

  Holly narrowed her eyes at him, but didn’t answer.

  After a while, Nick smiled. “I want the truth. How far from Belle Chere is the house your parents bought?”

  “Miles,” Holly said, her mouth in a rigid line.

  “How long does it take you to get to his house by water?”

  “You really aren’t a likable person. Has anyone ever told you that before?”

  Nick was rowing and chuckling. “Amazing,” he said at last. “You are so obsessed with some fantasy summer you think you had that you’ve moved heaven and earth to get near this poor, unsuspecting guy.”

  At that, Holly started to stand up, but when the boat tipped, she sat back down, her arms folded across her chest. “You’re despicable. I’m sure your girlfriend had good reason to break up with you.”

  Nick kept rowing, kept smiling. “It is fascinating to see how the mind of a woman works. Let me guess. You found out that your childhood boyfriend was going to be at home this summer so you, somehow, managed to coerce your unsuspecting parents into buying the house a few miles down the river—”

  “Less than one mile,” Holly said. She gave him a look of reproach, but she couldn’t help smiling. He seemed to be honestly amazed at what she’d done—and not a little admiring.

  “And no one suspected?”

  “My stepsister knows I’m after something, but I don’t think she has any idea what.”

  “She probably thinks you want Belle Chere.”

  “I do! I mean, I want the house, but I want the man, too. He really is perfect for me.”

  Nick was quiet for a moment. “You were thirteen. Did you two…?”

  “No!” Holly said emphatically. “Lorrie never touched me. He was like a big brother to me, only I…I…”

  “Lusted after him. I hear you do that with men. Okay, so what’s going on with him in the real world?”

  “He’s a lawyer and he wins big cases, so I can follow him on the Internet. He was divorced last fall and he told some society columnist that he was going to take a sabbatical this summer and stay at his family home.”

  “Belle Chere?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “I see,” Nick said, shaking his head in wonderment. “It looks like we men don’t have a chance once a woman decides she wants us.”

  “You’re disgusting.”

  “You said that.”

  “Bears repeating.”

  “I just want to give it a chance. Is that so bad? I liked him and he liked me, but that was when we were both very young. Now we’re grown-ups and we’re both free so I thought maybe…” She looked up at him, and didn’t like that she wanted his approval.

  “So what am I?” Nick asked. “A sort of prebachelorette party? One last fling before you marry your blueblood and move into the old homestead?”

  Holly thought of defending herself but didn’t. “More or less, that’s exactly what you are.”

  “No chance that you and I…? That we could…?” He wiggled his brows as though asking if they could set up housekeeping together.

  Holly looked away, frowning. Unfortunately, she was beginning to like him. Sure, he made her body sing—and cry and writhe—but then other men had…. Actually, no man had come close to making her feel as Nick Taggert did. But another man could! she told herself. With love and practice, a man could make her feel…

  When she looked up at him, the fading light glinting off his dark hair, she again thought how he looked like a pirate. He was so very good-looking. Heaven, she thought, smiling to herself. The first time she saw him she’d thought of him as “Heaven.”

  �
��No,” she said, after a while. There was regret in her voice, but, as always, she was a realist. “There can be nothing between us.” It was one thing to spend a sleepless weekend having fabulous sex with a man who rode a motorcycle and slept in his friend’s garage, but you didn’t marry men like him. She didn’t want to end up like her stepmother had, with a man who spent his evenings at the local bar shooting pool. And she didn’t want to end up with a man who was so intimidated by her inheritance that he came to hate her. She’d seen that happen, too.

  “Sorry,” she murmured. She tried to sound nonchalant, but she felt guilty. For a moment she had a flash of an old, fat Nick, surrounded by kids, a wife with her hair in curlers and a cigarette between her thin lips. “I used to know her,” Nick would say when he saw Holly on TV on Lorrie’s arm, as they attended some gala.

  “Sorry for me?” Nick asked, smiling. “You spent an entire summer alone with a sixteen-year-old boy, he didn’t touch you, and you feel sorry for me?”

  “Just because you people—I mean…” she said, trailing off.

  “Yes, what about ‘us’? You think we think only of sex? We have nothing else in mind? We don’t think of compatibility? Whether or not we have anything in common?”

  “I didn’t—I don’t mean—” Holly began, then stopped. “Are you hungry?”

  “I’ve been told that the store down the road doesn’t sell caviar.”

  “Very funny.” She was silent for a moment. “Nick, you’re going to be okay, aren’t you?” she asked quietly.

  “You mean, am I going to pine for you for the rest of my life? Compare all women to you and find them wanting?”

  She smiled at the way he put it.

  “Maybe a little,” he said, smiling back. “You are one hot cookie in bed.”

  She was pleased, but embarrassed at the same time, and a horrible thought came to her. “You wouldn’t…you know, mention this to anyone, would you?”

  “Tell your boyfriend about us?” he asked, still smiling. “You are a throwback, you know that? Will this guy think you’re a virgin?”

  “No, but my father does,” Holly said and they laughed together.

  After that, they’d returned to Leon’s garage and made a huge pot of spaghetti, and when she was full, Holly’s energy left her. She fell asleep with her head on the table. The next thing she knew, Nick was lifting her in his arms and carrying her to her car.

  “Sorry,” she said again, unable to open her eyes.

  “I want to give you something,” Nick said, but Holly could hardly hear him. Her mind was too fuzzy with sleep. “It’s a necklace,” he said. “Promise you’ll wear it.”

  “Mmmm,” was all she could say. She managed to open her eyes a bit and smile at him, but she was still mostly asleep. Vaguely, she was aware that he slipped something around her neck, then started the car. The next thing she knew he was carrying her up a flight of stairs. When he put her down on a bed, Holly let herself sink into oblivion.

  Chapter Five

  “GOOD-BYE, LATHAM,” NICK SAID, KISSED HER FOREHEAD, then left the house.

  He walked back to Leon’s house on the far side of the lake, glad for the exercise because it gave him time to think. By the time he reached the barn/garage, he was telling himself that by tomorrow he’d never remember the woman. All that had been between them was sex and nothing else. He’d had a great time with a funny, smart, interesting, beautiful young woman, but now it was over. She was going to her parents’ home and probably make a fool of herself over some snob she’d had a teenybopper crush on, but that was her business. After seeing the way she’d lusted over the old houses they’d seen together, Nick thought that as long as Holly had some old plantation house, she might be happy.

  So why was he feeling so rotten? Was it vanity? He’d never been turned down by a woman before. Women thought he looked good and they knew his family had money, so Nick had never had any problem in that department.

  But now, in an unusual set of circumstances, his family’s wealth and prestige were not a part of the picture and what had happened? A girl he’d really liked had told him thanks, but no thanks. She’d told him he was okay to bed, but not to wed.

  When Nick got back to the barn, he went through the long ritual of unlocking it, then stood in the doorway and looked about the place. Without her there, the garage was too big, too brightly lit, and too…too silent. He already missed her laughter.

  Yawning, he went into the office and began cleaning up the kitchen. He was tired and he knew he should go to bed, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to snuggle up to…to her.

  What had he been thinking when he’d said he didn’t want to know her first name? He’d known where her wallet was so he could have looked, but he didn’t.

  “The hell with it!” he said, then went to Leon’s fax machine. Maybe it would be easier to forget her if he knew she was going to be all right. Maybe he’d feel better if he knew that the man she was after was a good man. Maybe—

  He stopped making excuses, then wrote out a fax to send to his cousin Mike. Nick asked him to send information about Ambassador James Latham’s youngest daughter, and about a man named Laurence Beaumont, who owned an old plantation called Belle Chere.

  Once the page went through, Nick went to bed.

  The ringing of the phone woke him. Groggily, he awoke, heard the sound of a fax machine, then lay still for a while, not fully awake. For minutes, he lay there, half-asleep, and wished Latham was with him. He’d like to run his hands up her bare legs. Did she wear pajamas or a nightgown to sleep in? Maybe she slept in nothing. Or in silk. Maybe black silk. Or red. How about a deep pink that would look good against her pale skin? Maybe…

  The beep of the fax machine brought him back to reality. Someone had sent him a fax and it had finished printing.

  Nick flung back the sheet and went to the machine to retrieve what looked to be about ten pages of faxed sheets. He’d only read one of them when he had to sit down.

  “Hollander ‘Holly’ James Latham,” he read. “Hollander Tools heiress…” “Millions on her twenty-first birthday.” There was a long list of restoration projects she was working on or had completed. According to the dates, some of them had been started when she was just seventeen.

  There was a sheet entitled “William Laurence ‘Lorrie’ Beaumont.” “Father committed suicide over land scandals…Massive debt…Married to a very rich widow ten years his senior…Preservationists who want Belle Chere turned down.”

  Nick scanned the pages and didn’t like what he read. It didn’t surprise him to find out that Holly—that was her name—was wealthy. He smiled when he remembered that they’d made love on top of a floor dolly with the name “Hollander” painted across it.

  What Nick didn’t like was what he read about the Beaumont family. Holly had said that since the house was built, there had been at least one family member who was obsessed with Belle Chere enough to keep it restored.

  This Lorrie’s father had committed suicide, presumably because he was so deeply in debt. Lorrie had married an heiress ten years older than he was. Maybe it was love, but maybe it was…

  Nick put the pages down and told himself he was being ridiculous. He’d lost the girl to someone else. Lost fair and square.

  Well, maybe not fair and maybe he’d not been square with Holly about who and what he was, but he couldn’t bear to see her eyes change. He couldn’t have taken it if she’d suddenly said she would see him again now that she knew he was a doctor and of a good family.

  No, Nick couldn’t bear that. He wanted a woman to love him for himself, not for his status, not for his family’s money.

  “So why’d you give her the diamond?” he muttered aloud. His cousin Mike’d had some sharp things to say when he found out Nick had given the big canary diamond to his girlfriend. “Wife, Nick,” Mike said. Not yelling, not angry, but in a tone far worse. “Wife. There’s a difference.”

  There’d been a horrible scene when Nick had told Stephan
ie Benning she had to give the necklace back to him.

  And now Nick had draped the multimillion-dollar stone around Holly’s pretty little neck. “You’re an idiot, Taggert,” he said, then couldn’t keep from smiling. It looked like he’d have to go to her house across the lake and get the necklace back. Darn.

  As he was thinking about this, another fax came through. There was a cover letter from Mike.

  “I don’t know what you’re up to, but I saw a photo of Ambassador Latham’s daughter, so I can guess. However, we received an odd phone call from the police around Lake Winona. They seemed to believe you’re a lowlife, semicriminal who might have tried to kidnap an innocent young lady. I didn’t understand any of it until I got your request for info on Miss Hollander James Latham.

  It’s none of my business what you’re doing, but I thought you might be interested in this help wanted ad. If the job has been filled and you want it, let me know and I’ll hire him away.

  Good luck.

  With love,

  Mike

  P.S. Maybe you should return the necklace to the family vaults until vows are exchanged.”

  Nick had a momentary feeling of guilt over the necklace, but he smiled as he took a sheet of paper and wrote “I want the job” in big letters on a piece of paper, then faxed it through to his cousin.

  Nick made himself a huge breakfast, then got on the phone. First, he had to take care of his job. His cousin could take over for him. She was fresh out of medical school and what she lacked in experience she would make up for in enthusiasm.

  A few more calls got his mail, utilities, and his apartment taken care of. He didn’t want any of his “doctor clothes,” clothes whose labels would give too much away.

  By late afternoon he was ready to call the number in the ad. It was a want ad for a caretaker for a small estate in North Carolina, a jack-of-all-trades man to live in a small cottage on the grounds to look after the gardens, the boat, and the pier. It gave no indication that the employer was Ambassador James Latham, but Nick knew it was.

  The phone was answered by an angry man. It seemed the first person he’d hired had just quit. “The grass is to my ankles and my daughter has chiggers. Do you know what those are?” It was the commanding voice of a man used to speaking in public—and used to having people obey him.