The landscapers called it a moon garden, one where all the white-flowering blossoms shone luminous and ethereal in the moonlight.
The way Kate’s pretty dress had shimmered the night of the reunion last summer.
And why was he thinking of that instead of calling Kate back? The very thing he’d so often thought of—having a conversation with Kate Brooks—now stood as a symbol of all that had kept them apart. And how many times had he thought about her over the last few months since their brief encounter at the class reunion? Just about every day, almost every waking minute.
But, as he usually did when he didn’t want to face a problem, Parker poured his heart into his work. When he needed a break, he could take the dogs on a walk over his twenty-five acres, or go fishing down at the pond or just sit out by the pool, staring at nothing. Thinking of nothing.
Thinking of her.
“Okay,” he said out loud as he turned back to his storyboard. “Get her out of your mind, man.”
Kate Brooks came from a fine, hardworking middleclass family. Although she hadn’t been as wealthy as some of their classmates in college, she’d certainly been popular. And since she’d grown up here in Magnolia Falls, she’d been on the inside track with the uppity society crowd.
Parker, on the other hand, had moved here in his senior year of high school and had never managed to fit in. His family wasn’t rich. In fact, he’d lived in a house with his widowed mother and older sister on the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak. His mother had worked hard in the college cafeteria, but she’d insisted on Parker getting an education. So with money left over from his father’s insurance policy, she’d sent Parker to college. She’d died a year later.
Now his only sister was married with her own family in Atlanta, but Parker made sure she didn’t want for anything. He sent money to her regularly to help with her children’s education. He was glad to be able to do that, since it looked as though he might not ever have children of his own.
Then he thought of Kate’s son. Brandon. He’d told her he’d like to meet the little boy, though he certainly hadn’t made any effort to do so since the reunion. But then, a lot had happened since that night.
Beginning with Trevor Whittaker finding a skeleton buried on the college campus. That kind of scandal sure put a damper on any type of reunion or party. Maybe that’s why Parker hadn’t bothered pursuing Kate. He knew she was here; knew she worked hard at her job. He didn’t think she had time to date anyone, or at least he’d heard nothing to give him reason to believe that she did. He’d thought about calling her, but maybe he just liked the idea of Kate Brooks better than getting to know the real woman. Maybe he didn’t want to risk that. Because that would mean she’d have to get to know the real Parker Buchanan.
Parker looked down at Patch. The black dog with the brown spotted nose stared up at him with big eyes. “She needs a favor,” Parker said, shrugging. “What’s up with that, old boy?”
Patch made a grunt deep in his throat. Daisy looked from her master to her mate and back, then whimpered low.
“Oh, of course you’d side with Kate,” Parker said to the female dog. “You’re a woman, after all. I know y’all conspire together, right?”
Daisy gave him a quizzical look, then slid down onto the braided rug next to Patch.
Parker wondered why humans couldn’t be as loyal as animals.
The two dogs looked at each other, then back to Parker as if to say “It’s not that hard. We love each other.”
“Right,” Parker said. “Love. That has to be in there somewhere, doesn’t it?”
He stared at the phone, but he refused to listen to the message again. He didn’t believe in love. And he didn’t grant favors, even to an old friend.
This should be very simple, Kate decided two days later. It was a warm Saturday morning and Brandon was at soccer practice for the next couple of hours. And she was on a mission. Once she got something in her head, she plowed forward. Like moving to Nashville to become a country singing star. Or marrying the wrong man for all the wrong reasons.
But this was different. This was for Brandon. And Kate would do anything for her son.
Even if it meant breaking and entering, sort of.
“Got to move that mountain,” she said, thinking of another one of her mother’s favorite sayings.
She didn’t know what had possessed her to wake up this morning with criminal intent in her mind, but something had urged her to go to extreme measures regarding Parker Buchanan. Okay, maybe it was because her son looked so dejected each time she mentioned his birthday. Since nothing she offered seemed to change Brandon’s sad expression, she’d finally done a very foolish thing. She’d promised her son she’d talk to Parker Buchanan about at least coming to his birthday party.
“But that’s all I promised,” she told herself as she scoped the territory surrounding Brandon’s gated estate.
“I did not tell my son I was actually going to come here and confront the man himself.”
She eyed the electronic gate and the six-foot wrought-iron fence. Well, she had tried reaching Parker the conventional way, but the man wouldn’t return her messages. And he wouldn’t answer the buzzer on the gate, either, even after she’d hit it for the third time just to be sure. Maybe he wasn’t even in that big white house up on the hill. There was only one way to find out.
She was going in there.
Okay, so how exactly was she going to get inside this compound?
She looked around, thinking maybe if she found a tree near the fence, she could climb up and jump over. She saw an old oak, then tried to shimmy her way up the slanted trunk to the one low branch that could propel her over the high fence. Pushing through new spring brambles and old dead weeds, she managed to secure one tennis shoe to the tree, then lift herself up the ancient trunk. She climbed toward the protruding limb, then reached a hand out to grasp it. But the branch was limp and not as secure as it had looked from the ground, so her hand slipped, causing her to wobble backwards through the air. That only brought her tumbling back down onto her bottom, her hands rough and red from holding on to loose bark. Rubbing her raw palms against her now-soiled jeans, Kate stood back to stare at the graceful mansion sitting back away from the road. Maybe if she walked the perimeter of the property, she could find a way inside.
But after marching a few yards toward the woods, she realized the weeds and shrubs were too overgrown for her to be able to even find a hole in the fence. She had the thorns and beggar ticks on her jeans to prove it. And since the weather was warming up, there was a possibility that she’d encounter a rattlesnake or copperhead coming out of hibernation.
Frustrated, sweating and puffing, with her hair falling out of the haphazard coil she’d pulled together this morning, she came back to the fence.
“Maybe I can squeeze through those iron bars,” she reasoned. Something told Kate she’d just have to force the issue with Parker, to get his attention at least. If she remembered nothing else about the man, she knew he was stubborn and full of pride.
Kate intended to break through all that, for her son’s sake.
“Sure, like that’s gonna happen.”
Then an amazing thing did happen. The gate started to swing open. Glancing around, Kate wondered if there was a camera on her. But a delivery truck coming down the long drive from the house confirmed she was safe. Obviously, even a recluse like Parker Buchanan had to order supplies now and then.
So, taking the only chance she might have, she slipped through the open gate, in too much of a hurry to get in her car and drive through the normal way. She scooted around the partially open gate before the truck rounded the curve to the street, then hid behind a tall camellia bush until the truck was gone and the gate had shut.
She was inside Parker’s beautiful