href="#u8e070ce3-57df-5fdc-bc8b-427bd49b23c6">8
I’M HOME, NELL thought as she trimmed the ends off string beans and added them to a pot of water. A few feet away, Aunt Vi took a roasting pan out of the oven and placed it on top of the stove to cool. The scent of the chicken and freshly baked scones surrounded her with comfort and a feeling of safety. She’d spent her childhood, her girlhood, her adolescence, in this room. On rainy days, she’d played Scrabble with her sisters at the counter. Under her aunt’s supervision, she had finished math assignments and had written her first short story at the kitchen table. After rinsing her hands in the sink, Nell sank into a chair to watch her aunt mash a steaming pot of potatoes. “You’re making a feast.”
Vi glanced up. “Tomorrow will be busy. There’s a rehearsal for the wedding on Saturday. Very small. Edie’s granddaughter Molly is getting married. So we’re having a family celebration tonight. Reid hasn’t visited since your father’s wedding, and it’s been nearly a year since you’ve been here—your longest absence yet. Your sisters were surprised that you completed your grant work. Very proud and pleased—but surprised.”
Nell grinned at her. “Did they expect me to get homesick and run back here?”
“Something like that. They were worried when you turned down that part-time teaching position at Huntleigh College. They saw it as the perfect job to complement your writing career.”
“And it would have kept me wrapped in a cocoon. I loved every minute of the year I spent on my own—no dorm supervisor, no one to report to except myself. No one to depend on except myself.”
“No one hovering over you. The butterfly breaks free.” Vi nodded in understanding. “You always had at least three of us looking out for you, telling you what to do.”
Nell laughed. “You never hovered. You were much more subtle than Piper and Adair.”
“I learned early on that it didn’t do much good to argue with you once you had your mind made up. You were always your own boss, Nell. When you know what you want, you go after it, and you usually get it. So besides celebrating your independence, what did you enjoy the most on your cross-country tour?”
Nell smiled. “The settings, the people, and I kept a daily log. Now I have so much that will enrich my writing. I’m trying my hand at writing a different kind of book this time. Romantic suspense for adults. It will be very different from my first.”
Vi glanced over her shoulder. “I’m not surprised that you’re taking on a new challenge. But it seems to me that It’s All Good shares many qualities of the genre. Eleanor is a strong woman—just the kind of heroine a reader would connect with in a romantic suspense novel. As for Angus—he’s a classic hero. He swept his true love off her feet and carried her off.”
Nell thought of how different their situation was from her own. Fat chance that Reid was going to sweep her off her feet. In fact, she suspected that she was the one who was going to have to do the sweeping. “That makes Eleanor sound like a wimp. I want my heroine to be stronger.”
“Don’t sell Eleanor short. She left everything to go with Angus—her family, her home, the life she knew. To my way of thinking, that took a lot of courage.”
Vi glanced through the glass terrace doors at the two men and then turned back to Nell. “They’re about halfway through their beers. How about we have a glass of wine, and you can tell me what you’re going to do about Reid Sutherland, and how you’re going to find the necklace.”
Nell tilted her head, studying her aunt as she opened a chilled bottle of white wine and filled two glasses. She hadn’t missed the fact that Reid had come first on her aunt’s list and not the necklace. “Reid’s always been your favorite of the Sutherland boys, hasn’t he?”
“He accepted the responsibility of taking care of my girls. You played a lot of risky games that summer.”
Nell grinned. “You weren’t supposed to know about them.”
After taking a sip of her wine, Vi poured warm milk into the pot with the potatoes, then continued to mash. “It was my job to know. And I worried less because of Reid. He and his brothers were ten. And they were boys through and through. Mischief was in their genes. Reid could have made it his entire focus that summer to have fun. Instead, he made it his responsibility to keep all of you safe.”
“He became my hero. My Prince Charming. I fell in love with him that summer.”
“I fell in love with him a bit, too,” Vi admitted. “He won my heart the day that Cam and Duncan decided you were all going to hike up Stone Mountain and find the source of the water that drops over Tinker’s Falls.”
Nell frowned for a bit as she searched her memory. “I remember we played at the falls a lot and in the cave where Piper and Duncan discovered the second earring, but I don’t recall going to Stone Mountain.”
“That’s because you and Reid didn’t go. He let his brothers go off with Adair and Piper. They were eight and nine. You were six. So he talked you into a day of playing tea party with your animals and dolls. I can’t imagine that was the way he preferred to spend his time.”
Nell grinned. “Now I remember that day. No one had been willing to play tea party with me before. Adair and Piper were always fascinated by the more dangerous games the boys came up with.”
“Reid knew exactly what bait to use to keep you from feeling you were missing out on the big adventure. I figured then he had to be pretty good at keeping watch over his brothers.”
Nell shifted her gaze to the two men on the terrace. Vi’s description of Reid rang true. He was a natural-born caretaker and it made him very good at his job. “He’s still very much a protector.”
“I’m depending on that.” Vi set the pot of potatoes on a burner and sat down next to her niece.
A line appeared on Nell’s brow as she continued to study Reid speculatively. “That’s posing a bit of a challenge for me.”
“A challenge?”
“A big one. I was drawn to him when he was a boy because he was handsome and kind, a storybook hero. A fantasy in the flesh. Now what he makes me feel is entirely different. He stirs things up in me I didn’t know were there. I didn’t even know they were possible. I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel about him.”
Vi took Nell’s hands in hers. “Does he know how you feel?”
“Oh, yes. And the stirring-up part is mutual. That’s when our narratives start to conflict.”
“How?”
“He’s not happy about it. He doesn’t want to hurt me. He thinks we should file away what we’re feeling and what we could feel, and forget all about it. If Angus had been that kind of hero, this castle wouldn’t be here. And neither would all of us.”
Vi smiled at her. “You obviously take issue with Reid’s solution.”
Nell shifted her gaze to Reid again. “I do. I only have to look at him to want him. And I can’t stop thinking about how much more we could stir up in each other. He kissed me today for the first time. I’m hoping that the forbidden-fruit thing kicks in, and he won’t be able to resist taking another bite. I definitely want to kiss him again, and I want to know what comes next.”
“Have you decided what you’re going to do about it?” Vi asked.
“Yes.” Nell thought of the scenarios she’d plotted out and hidden away on the night of their parents’ wedding, and of all the other similar ones that had fueled her dreams for years.
Vi patted her hand. “Good. I’d act fast. That’s what I did with Daryl.”
Nell’s eyes widened. “You did?”
“I did.” She grinned at her niece. “I knew I wanted him the first time I looked at him, so I took him out to the stone arch