THE CAMELOT CRIER

ABOUT TOWN: Camelot, Virginia

Could the rumors be true?

Is Camelot’s favorite son in a hot relationship…with his housekeeper’s daughter? Reliable sources claim just that. Senator Gabriel Kendrick, some would say the future governor of Virginia, has been seen in the company of one Addie Lowe, the Kendrick estate groundskeeper and child of household staff. A photographer at The Crier caught them in an intimate pose on a garden path. Gabe has claimed the two are “just friends,” but if a picture is worth a thousand words, the one above is screaming something more than friendship. Is the honorable senator involved in a clandestine affair? Or has he really fallen for the lovely Miss Lowe?

Dear Reader,

It’s spring, love is in the air…and what better way to celebrate than by taking a break with Silhouette Special Edition? We begin the month with Treasured, the conclusion to Sherryl Woods’s MILLION DOLLAR DESTINIES series. Though his two brothers have been successfully paired off, Ben Carlton is convinced he’s “destined” to go it alone. But the brooding, talented young man is about to meet his match in a beautiful gallery owner—courtesy of fate…plus a little help from his matchmaking aunt.

And Pamela Toth concludes the MERLYN COUNTY MIDWIVES series with In the Enemy’s Arms, in which a detective trying to get to the bottom of a hospital black-market drug investigation finds himself in close contact with his old high school flame, now a beautiful M.D.—she’s his prime suspect! And exciting new author Lynda Sandoval (look for her Special Edition novel One Perfect Man, coming in June) makes her debut and wraps up the LOGAN’S LEGACY Special Edition prequels, all in one book—And Then There Were Three. Next, Christine Flynn begins her new miniseries, THE KENDRICKS OF CAMELOT, with The Housekeeper’s Daughter, in which a son of Camelot—Virginia, that is—finds himself inexplicably drawn to the one woman he can never have. Marie Ferrarella moves her popular CAVANAUGH JUSTICE series into Special Edition with The Strong Silent Type, in which a female detective finds her handsome male partner somewhat less than chatty. But her determination to get him to talk quickly morphs into a determination to…get him. And in Ellen Tanner Marsh’s For His Son’s Sake, a single father trying to connect with the son whose existence he just recently discovered finds in the free-spirited Kenzie Daniels a woman they could both love.

So enjoy! And come back next month for six heartwarming books from Silhouette Special Edition.

Happy reading!

Gail Chasan

Senior Editor

The Housekeeper’s Daughter
Christine Flynn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my walking buddy and dear friend, Wendy Graham.

Thanks for mile after mile of conversation, motivation

and for being the caring person you are.

CHRISTINE FLYNN

admits to being interested in just about everything, which is why she considers herself fortunate to have turned her interest in writing into a career. She feels that a writer gets to explore it all and, to her, exploring relationships—especially the intense, bittersweet or even lighthearted relationships between men and women—is fascinating.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter One

T hey said he needed a wife. A woman of breeding who wouldn’t mind spending her evenings alone or entertaining on a moment’s notice. A special woman who could withstand the scrutiny of his family, the press and his constituents. According to the polls, men who were settled projected a better image and more easily gained the public’s trust.

A frown furrowed Gabe Kendrick’s broad brow as he stood at the arched bedroom window, his hands in the pockets of his khaki slacks, his broad shoulders straight beneath his white polo shirt. As a senator in Virginia’s General Assembly, he was well aware that political decisions could often be cold and calculated. But adding “find a wife” to his list of things to do hadn’t been the advice he’d expected from his father and his uncle Charles when he’d arrived at the family estate last night.

Offhand, he couldn’t think of any woman he’d want to spend the weekend with, much less the rest of his life.

The thought deepened the furrows. Last night’s discussion had been a long-range planning session, one of those discussions that went beyond immediate needs to set smaller goals on the way to a larger one. He already had an excellent reputation. He had money. And heaven knew he had name recognition. From the moment his mother had relinquished her claim to the throne of the kingdom of Luzandria to marry his father thirty-five years ago, the Kendrick name had been a household word.

His father, now retired, had been a young senator himself at the time. Not much older than Gabe’s own thirty-three years. His mother was one of the most photographed women in the world. He, his brother and both of their sisters had grown up on the covers of magazines. Press and paparazzi followed them nearly everywhere.

Name recognition, he definitely had.

All he needed was the perfect woman. He just had no intention of addressing the wife issue now. He had no time for a relationship. He would have even less after he announced his candidacy for governor. He barely had time for his own family as it was.

The thought had him glancing at his watch and wincing at the time. He was supposed to be joining them for breakfast at that very moment.

He loved his family. The good-natured competition between them energized him, and he hadn’t seen certain aunts, uncles and cousins in months. He was even looking forward to a little rough and tumble with his young second cousins out on the manicured lawn. But, having arrived late last night from Richmond, then being up until two in the morning with his father and uncle, he wanted nothing more than a little peace before he joined the myriad relatives gathered below.

Always mindful of what others expected of him, he prepared to abandon the view of magnificent gardens beyond the leaded glass. Peace would have to wait.

Or so he was thinking when he caught sight of a small, slender figure moving from behind the gazebo. The family’s young groundskeeper moved methodically as she tended the wide flower border, reaching to snag a weed, pinch a dead bloom.

He couldn’t help the smile that erased his fatigue. His mother never had been able to get Addie Lowe into a uniform. With the exception of the stable master, every other member of the Kendrick estate’s staff wore a uniform appropriate to his or her position. Bentley, the mechanic and chauffeur, wore tan in the summer and black in winter. The maids wore black dresses with white collars and aprons. The cook wore white. Gardeners wore tan jumpsuits.

Except for Addie.

The jumpsuits his mother preferred were apparently sized for men and didn’t come small enough for her. As quiet and unassuming as the youngest staff member tended to be, she managed to blend in even in her usual chambray and denim. But Gabe thought it appropriate that she had escaped having to conform. He’d always thought her spirit too gentle to box in.

He hadn’t even realized he’d been looking for her until he’d seen her.

He crossed the room, his footsteps soundless on the antique-gold rug and opened the door to the long, door-lined east wing. The other doors along the wide burgundy carpeted hallway were closed, hiding the unmade beds the maids would tackle now that everyone was up and moving.

The entire Kendrick clan had descended on the 125-acre estate in Camelot, Virginia, for the social event of the year. Gabe’s youngest sister, Tess, was marrying Bradley Michael Ashworth III tomorrow on the north lawn. According to the schedule of events he’d found waiting for him on his pillow last night, rehearsal was at three o’clock this afternoon. The rehearsal dinner was at a restaurant in town at six-thirty that evening. Breakfast had started fifteen minutes ago.

The tantalizing aroma of coffee drew him down the steps of the double, carved and curving staircase that embraced the marble foyer. The scent mingled with the fragrance of an enormous bouquet on the round glass table centered in the echoing space before he pushed through a small door beneath the stairs. By using the butler’s door, he could avoid the breakfast room.

Voices drifted toward him as he moved through the halls at the back of the house. The servants’ areas were separate from the family’s, but he was close to the breakfast room here. The clink of fine silver on china underscored animated conversation as he stepped into the brightly lit kitchen.

“Gabriel Kendrick.”

His name held a blend of surprise and pleasure as the pleasantly plump Olivia Schilling turned from her sauce on the eight-burner stove. That stove was in the middle of the huge, white-tiled center island. Copper pots hung from the high ceiling above it. Fresh herbs lined the long, multipaned window over the triple stainless steel sink.

Grinning, he buzzed a kiss over her cheek. “How’s my favorite chef?”

The Kendricks’ cook of twenty-five years smelled of soap and vanilla, just as she always had. And, just as she always had, she replied, “She’s just dandy,” and smiled back.

Olivia’s short, ruthlessly permed salt-and-pepper hair didn’t budge as she turned back to her task. A white apron, pristine except for a streak of egg yolk, protected a starched white blouse and black skirt. Her white running shoes sported a defiant slash of neon green.

“We heard you might be late rising this morning,” she informed him, referring to herself and the young maid backing through a swinging door with a silver tray of pastries. “I was just thinking I should set aside a tray for you. What do you need over there?”

“Not a thing,” he replied, heading for the coffeemaker under a long line of white birch and glass cabinets. “I just want some coffee.”

“Isn’t there any in the other room?” she asked, glancing toward the still-swinging door. “Hold on and I’ll have Marie refill the service.”

“I haven’t been in the other room. I’m avoiding it. Marie is new,” he observed, as much to avoid making excuses for why he wasn’t joining his family as to acknowledge new staff. “Is she permanent or just here for the weekend?”

“Permanent. She replaced Sheryl.”

“Sheryl.” He repeated her name flatly, trying to remember if he’d met her. “Didn’t Mom just hire her?”

“Three months ago. I swear we’ve gone through one after another since Rita retired.”

“So why did she quit?” Gabe asked, filling a thick ceramic mug his mom would never have allowed on any of her tables.

“She didn’t. Mrs. Lowe fired her,” she said, speaking of the head housekeeper. “She caught her snooping through a guest’s handbag and let her go on the spot.” Lifting her wooden spoon from the pot, she touched her finger to the thick sauce clinging to it. Frowning when she tasted it, she reached for a lemon. “She and your mom hired Marie a few weeks ago.”

The door swung back open. “She’s doing a fine job, too,” Rose Lowe announced, her voice low. “I just hope she works out. With the social season beginning, there will be teas, dinners and parties, and it’s so much easier to work with people familiar with the way we do things here.

“Hello, Gabe,” she continued, offering him a polite smile on her way to the paper towels.

The head housekeeper wore the same style of black dress as the maid, only without the white collar and apron. In the thirty-some years Addie’s mother had worked for the family, Gabe had rarely seen anything on her reed-thin body with much color to it. The past several years, she’d even worn black to the employees’ Christmas party.

The overhead lights caught hints of platinum in her dark and tidy bun as she ripped off a dozen sheets of towling. He had known Mrs. Lowe most of his life, too. But the incredibly efficient, fifty-something matron maintained a formal reserve around family that Olivia often did not.

“Now that you’re up,” she continued, folding the sheets as she retraced her steps, “we can set out fresh eggs Benedict. Olivia, we need more sausages, too. Young Trevor reached across the sideboard and knocked the pitcher of orange juice into the chafing dish. Miss Amber added milk.”

Trevor was his cousin Nathan’s youngest son. If he remembered correctly, Trevor had just started school. Amber was younger and belonged to his cousin Sydney.

He had a few other young second cousins in there, too. No doubt the twenty-some adults gathered around the table were reminding them all of their manners right about now.

“Don’t set out anything on my account.” Pulling his mug from beneath the tap on the industrial-size coffeepot, he headed past the pine table where house staff shared their meals. With the touch of chaos going on in the other room, no one would even miss him. “I’m just passing through.”

Olivia visibly stifled the urge to tell him he needed to eat. Mrs. Lowe said nothing. Her mouth just pinched the way it inevitably did when he spoke. He had no idea why that was. But, more often than not, she tended to regard him with that faint but distinct disapproval.

Too accustomed to the look to think anything in particular of it now, he excused himself with a nod. “Ladies,” he said, and headed for the back door.

“If you run into Addie out there,” he heard Olivia call, “ask her about her news.”

“What kind of news?”

“Let her tell you.”

“He doesn’t need to take Addie from her work,” he heard Mrs. Lowe insist.

“She can work while they talk.”

“She doesn’t need the distraction.”

“Oh, lighten up, Rose,” Olivia insisted right back. “It’ll take all of a minute.”

“Will do,” he called back, intending to talk to Addie, anyway, and let the door bump to a close on their debate.

Taking a sip of Olivia’s wonderfully strong coffee, he stepped into the late-September sunshine. The spicy scent of petunias drifted on the warming morning air. Huge pots of the thick white blooms lined the sprawling verandah with its wicker tables and lounging chairs. The lawn spread like a thick emerald carpet past the reflecting pond and formal gardens lush with color.

Addie would have been responsible for all of it, he thought, crossing the freshly swept boards to step onto the lawn.

His long stride, normally so purposeful, began to slow as it tended to do whenever he entered the immaculate gardens or the pathways in the woods beyond. Often when he came home, no one was there other than his parents. In the summer, when his parents left for their house in the Hamptons, there was only staff present. Addie’s father, who had been the groundskeeper until he’d passed away five years ago, had been the one person he had always looked forward to seeing there.

He still missed the guy. The seclusion of the estate was Gabe’s refuge when he faced decisions or needed to work a problem through. It always had been. During breaks from college and as a young man getting his feet wet in local politics, he had spent hours talking—and listening—to Tom Lowe. While the older man had tended the grounds, Gabe had followed him around the property soaking up his earthy, plain-spoken wisdom, pestering him with questions, challenging him and being challenged. Addie had been there, too, a small shadow trailing after her adored father. Because they lived in such different worlds, the man who had once owned his own farm had provided a down-to-earth candor that his own father and his uncle could not. No Kendrick knew what it was like to earn a living from the land, to suffer the whims of nature or have nothing but wit, grit and common sense to fall back on.

His mother’s side of the family might be royalty, but his father’s side had always been rich.

Taking another sip of much-needed caffeine, he watched Addie where she crouched by a border thick with golden-yellow chrysanthemums. Without looking behind her, she dropped dead blooms in the galvanized bucket by her knee and reached out again to check for anything faded. In the bright sunshine, her short brown hair gleamed with hints of ruby and topaz. Her shoulders and hips were as slender as a young girl’s.

There was a fragility about her that seemed entirely too feminine for the denim she wore, and the work she did. A pair of clippers hung from the narrow waist of her slim jeans. The sleeves of the blue chambray shirt tucked into them were rolled up to expose her tanned and slender arms.

As if sensing his presence, or maybe realizing she was being stared at, she glanced over her shoulder. Genuine pleasure lit her delicate features. Her darkly lashed brown eyes glowed with welcome.

“I’m glad to see you’re surviving my mother.” Liking the way her smile always made him feel, he raised his mug to her. “I can only imagine how obsessed she’s been about the grounds.”

From a distance came the throaty hum of a riding lawn mower. One of the two part-time men she supervised was mowing the lawns lining the long front drive.

“I won’t mind at all when this is over,” she quietly confessed, checking her watch as if gauging the man’s progress. “I’m already behind on fall pruning because we need everything full and green for tomorrow. I just hope no one looks underneath some of these bushes and plants,” she murmured. “I’ve had to fill in with pots from the nursery.”

Still kneeling, she pushed aside her bangs with the back of her hand. “I’m surprised to see you here so early. I wouldn’t have thought you’d arrive until time for the rehearsal.” The soft smile in her eyes turned to curiosity. “Did you come early to meet with your uncle Charles?”

There were times when Gabe felt she knew him as well as her father once had. Tom Lowe had been the first to recognize that he hated being idle, unless it was on his own terms. He had to be doing, seeking, accomplishing. He gave a hundred percent to whatever he needed to do once he got wherever he needed to be, but he scheduled himself so tightly that he was never ahead of schedule without a purpose.

“We met for a while last night. It’s time to bring a professional strategist on board,” he confided, wondering if Addie didn’t actually know him even better. Tom used to warn him about burning out if he didn’t learn to pace himself. Addie seemed to understand that he thrived on that pace. “Dad thinks one of the lawyers in Charles’s firm might be just who we need. I’ll meet with him in a couple of weeks to talk about my campaign.”

Rising, she moved with her pail to the next section of flowers, her eyes on her work, her attention on him. “Is he here, or in Washington?”

“Washington. I thought I was aggressive,” he admitted, moving with her, “but this guy’s got even me beat. He told Charles he thinks we should start positioning for the presidency at the start of my term as governor.”

A wrinkled leaf hit the bucket, along with a handful of browning blossoms. “What do you think?”

“It sounded good to me.”

“Shouldn’t you win the election as governor first?”

He could always count on Addie’s practicality to keep his ego in check.

“I suppose it might help,” he conceded, thinking it wouldn’t have killed her to offer just a little stroke of confidence.

“Might,” she echoed with a little smile. “You always are getting ahead of yourself.”

“I think of it more as planning ahead.”

She lifted one shoulder in a faint shrug.

“What?” he asked, knowing there was something she wasn’t saying.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she mused, curiously touching a potato bug and watching it roll into a ball. “I was just thinking that you don’t seem happy unless you’re dreaming huge. There’s nothing wrong with that,” she qualified, sounding as practical and pragmatic as her father might have, “so long as you don’t overlook what needs to be done in the meantime.”

The reminder gave him pause. He did tend to set big goals. And he did sometimes fail to notice obvious details in his preoccupation to reach them. But last night’s talks had been heady stuff. Rumor had it that he was a shoo-in for his party for governor. The other major party couldn’t even find a candidate willing to run because no one wanted to lose to Virginia’s favorite son. He had his detractors, of course, people who believed he would be nothing without his family’s money or name. But he would push himself as hard as necessary to prove himself worthy of people’s faith in him. Pushing himself was what he did best.

In the meantime, however, there were things that needed to be done. For one, he apparently needed to find himself a wife.

The thought had him frowning into his cup. Years ago he would have asked her father what he thought of that idea. Now he considered picking Addie’s brain about that particular obligation.

He didn’t know if she had learned from her dad as he had, or if she’d simply inherited his knack for knowing the right thing to do. But in the years since her father’s death, she had proved herself to be as uncannily wise as her dad and surprisingly insightful where Gabe’s aspirations and obligations were concerned.

He valued her insight, her honesty and the fact that he could trust her with anything. He just didn’t want to think about duty or his campaign just then. He hadn’t been home for a month. He’d rather just enjoy her undemanding company.

“Olivia said you have some news. Did you finish your research?”

Addie’s expert eye swept the border as she moved along.

“Not yet. But I did call the president of the local historical society about what I found. She had no idea there’d been a public garden on that old property,” she said, a hint of excitement sneaking into her tone. “She asked me to send her copies of what I had and offered to help get the project funded when my research is complete.”

Addie had been working for years to graduate from college. While doing research for a botany class last winter, she had discovered a forgotten set of plans for an historic garden. The last time he’d been home, she had just located the property it had once occupied in Camelot.

“Funding a restoration can take forever,” he warned.

“I’m learning that,” she admitted, looking more excited, trying not to be. “But once the property gets an historical designation, the garden itself will be a piece of cake. I have copies of the old plans and the list of all the plants. There’s reference to a water trough I still need to research, but we have nearly all of the plants right here on this property. Dad found them years ago when he laid out the colonial garden for your mother.”

“Mom’s going to let you dig them up?”

“Heavens, no,” she murmured, still checking for anything wilted. “I asked if I could take cuttings. I’ve already started cultivating them.”

Drawn by her enthusiasm, impressed by her thoroughness, Gabe felt himself smiling once more. “It sounds as if you have it all figured out.”

“Except for the paperwork,” she conceded, less enthused about that detail. “But that’s what Mrs. Dewhurst said she’d help me with. She’s the president of the historical society.”

He knew the woman. Helene Dewhurst was an old money social maven who kept her manicured claws in everything. “Will you get class credit if she helps?”

“This isn’t for school. I’m doing it because of Dad. For him, actually,” she confided. “You know how he loved growing the old hybrids we don’t see anymore. And you know he felt knowledge was to be shared.”

Her father had loved anything with a history to it. He had also thrived on sharing in infinite detail whatever he could learn about whatever he discovered. Her father had instilled her deep respect for anything old and venerable, along with her love of the soil and the miracles that grew from it. He had also taught her more than Gabe figured any female truly wanted to know about the origins of every professional football team in New England.

Her gentle voice grew softer. “I think he’d like knowing his work helped restore something people could enjoy.”

The softness in her tone was echoed in her smile. He should have known there was more to her excitement than something that would serve only her own purpose. She always seemed most animated thinking of someone else.

“How close are you to finishing your research?”

The handle of her pail landed on the rim with a metallic clink when she moved it again. “I hope to have everything together before I go back to school.”

That would be in January. “See if you can get it finished before that and give it to me. I’ll fast-track it for you.”

Addie’s eyes lit when she looked back up at him, past the heavy mug in his hand, past his broad chest and broader shoulders.

“You’d do that?”

“Of course I would.”

Addie swallowed a bubble of elation over what Gabe was offering. She had been raised to be realistic. There wasn’t an impractical bone in her body. And heaven knew she was always sensible. The help of Mrs. Dewhurst had already confirmed her hope that the project had merit, but with Gabe’s influence, she actually had a shot at seeing it completed before she turned as ancient as the pines by the lake.

“I’ll get it to you as soon as I can.”

“Let my secretary know when it’s coming. She’ll watch for it.”

“I will,” she said, adding her thanks, watching him smile.

The shape of his mouth was blatantly sensual, the line of his jaw strong and as determined as the man himself. His eyes were the gray of old pewter, his dark hair thick and meticulously cut.

He was a beautiful man. He was also tall, powerful, incredibly wealthy, and he had captured the interest of every female in the country with a Cinderella fantasy. His integrity and intelligence had earned him the respect of his friends and constituents, and the envy of his opposition. Addie knew all of that. But she thought of him only as her friend. Not that she would ever share that with anyone. She had grown up fully aware of her station. Like her mother and the father she still missed, she was just an employee of the Kendricks. And staff was expected to remain on the periphery and be as unobtrusive as possible.

Addie had never found being inconspicuous a problem. She was barely five foot three, as skinny as a sapling and about as shapely, and looked more like a girl than a twenty-five-year-old woman. She’d even flunked the assertiveness test she’d found in her friend Ina’s Cosmo. As with the group of four manicured, pedicured and coiffured women approaching Gabe now, people tended to look right past her.

“The gardens are fabulous, Aunt Katherine,” she heard one of the young ladies say. “The wedding is going to be wonderful.”

“You’re a dear, Sydney,” Gabe’s golden-blond and elegant mother replied to her niece. Wearing a cream silk blouse and taupe silk slacks, Katherine Theresa Sophia of Luzandria, now a Kendrick, looked as regal as the queen she could have been, had she not married Gabe’s father. Her two daughters and her niece looked just like her, fair, polished and utterly refined.

“I just hope the weather holds,” Mrs. Kendrick continued. “We have the tent on the west lawn for dinner, but I’d hate to have to move the ceremony inside. I don’t know why we didn’t use the cathedral downtown.”

“Because I wanted to be married at home,” the glowing bride-to-be reminded her mother. “And we won’t have to move anything inside. There’s not a cloud in the sky, and the weather report is for clear. Everything will be fine.”

“‘Fine’ isn’t good enough.” Mrs. Kendrick smiled at Gabe as he turned toward her. “We want perfect. Good morning, dear,” she said, greeting him with an affectionate peck on the cheek. “We missed you at breakfast. Your uncle Charles wants you to meet him at the stables to go riding.”

Sydney, wearing crisp white linen, waved toward the house. “And the kids want you to play soccer out front with them.”

“Oh, they can’t play out there,” Mrs. Kendrick said. “The rental people will be arriving with the tent any minute to set it up. It would be best if they played down by the tennis courts.”

“Do you want me to take them riding?” Gabe offered.

“No!” the three younger women chimed in unison.

“We don’t want anything broken,” his little sister, Tess, explained. “Knowing you and Uncle Charles, you’d have them out there jumping logs or hedges. A trip to the emergency room is not on the schedule.”

“Weddings are finely tuned events,” Sydney informed him.

“What she means, brother dear,” chimed in his other sister, Ashley, as she and another female cousin joined them, “is that you have no idea what goes into the planning of an occasion like this. Your people could take notes.”

Silently moving another twenty feet away, Addie continued her task of inspecting the area where cocktails would be served following the ceremony and before dinner. Since the white gazebo would hold the bar, she worked her way through the profusion of red petunias bordering its base.

No one seemed to notice her as she all but disappeared behind the elegant white structure to crouch by the flowers. Just as no one had seemed to recognize that it was she and her men who had babied and nurtured every leaf and blade of grass on the palatial grounds. Any compliments about the grounds were meant for Mrs. Kendrick. Not for her. She was only the means to an end.

“So who’s going to enter this madness next?” Sydney wanted to know. “Is anyone involved with someone they’re not telling us about?”

“Not that I know of,” replied the lovely, rather reserved Ashley. “And certainly not me. I haven’t had a date in months, so that puts me at the back of the line.”

“What about Cord? Is he seeing anyone since that model sued him?”

Ashley sent her tactless cousin a subtle, shushing glance. “I think my brother is laying low after that paternity suit. He’s coming to the wedding alone.”

“I just pray he stays out of trouble for a while,” Mrs. Kendrick murmured. Her second son garnered more publicity in some years than the entire family combined. “We’ve had enough sensationalism for this year.”

“What about you, Gabe?” the nosy Sydney ventured, undaunted. “Do you have a lady friend you’re hiding from us?”

“Are you kidding?” The bride gave a little laugh. “The way the press has been digging around to find out if and when he’s going to announce, they’d have come up with anything he was hiding by now. There’s no woman. Trust me.”

From the corner of her eye, Addie saw a good-natured smile deepen the lines bracketing Gabe’s mouth. “I think I hear a horse calling,” he muttered. “I’m out of here.”

“Coward,” Ashley whispered.

“Smart,” he countered, backing away.

He caught Addie’s glance as he did, his gray eyes laughing. But he’d no sooner given her a discreet wink to indicate he would see her later, than a look of recognition swept his sister’s flawlessly made up face.

“I know someone here who’s getting married,” Ashley announced. “Our groundskeeper,” she said, stopping Gabe dead in his tracks. “I just heard it from our cook yesterday.” Genuinely pleased, she shifted her attention toward the gazebo. She craned her neck, laying her hand delicately over her pearls. “Addie,” she called. “Congratulations on your engagement.”

Every one of the beautifully dressed women smiled at where she knelt in her serviceable denim and grass-stained boots.

With his back to everyone but her, the smile in Gabe’s eyes died completely.

“My congratulations, too,” Mrs. Kendrick added, sounding as sincere as she looked. “Your mother told me you haven’t set a date yet, and I know we’ll speak later, but I want you to know now that we’re going to miss you here.”

Addie wasn’t accustomed to being the center of attention. More familiar with being nearly invisible in a group like this, she’d been caught completely off guard at being included in it. Even for a few moments. That had to be the reason she felt as if her cheeks were flaming.

The only thing she could think to say was “Thank you,” before the women all turned their focus back to each other. She couldn’t think of anything to do, either, except jerk her self-conscious glance from Gabe’s when she realized it had caught on his once more.

Her cheeks were actually cool to her touch when she brushed the back of her hand over one and bent her head to her task once more. Yet, as she heard the women talking now about weddings past as they moved to where the ceremony itself would take place, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Gabe had been caught off guard, too.

She just had no idea what to make of the way his brow had pinched as he walked away and headed for the stables.

Chapter Two

G abe was panting hard when he grabbed the tail of his faded-gray Yale T-shirt, wiped the sweat from his face and planted his hands on his knees to catch his breath. The early-morning sun beat on the back of his head. The still-cool air fed his lungs.

He’d just shaved fifteen seconds off his fastest mile, and that after running his usual five.

There wasn’t a muscle in his body not screaming in protest.

He glanced at the timer on his watch again, took a deeper, slower drag of air.

He’d just beaten his personal best, but the satisfaction he should have felt simply wasn’t there. That disappointed him, too, considering that a quarter of a minute was the largest chunk he’d ever managed to cut off before. But he hadn’t set out to indulge his competitive streak. He’d practically run himself into the ground trying to escape the restiveness that had nagged him ever since he’d walked away from Addie yesterday.

He rose slowly, wiping his face again, and started walking up the oak-lined drive from the isolated country road. He wasn’t entirely sure what he’d felt when his sister had broken Addie’s news. He’d wanted to think it was only surprise, that he had simply been caught off guard because she’d given no hint of being involved with anyone.

The explanation was logical, which he always was. And rational, which he tried to be, too. Considering that he had known her since she was born, he tended to think of her simply as he saw her, and not as someone with a life beyond the boundaries of his family’s estate. It stood to reason that having her move outside that neat little box would jar him a little.

It bothered him that he would be so narrow in his view of someone, but the logic placated him. A little, anyway. It didn’t do a thing, however, to explain his edginess. Something under that unfamiliar discontent felt a little like disbelief. Or, slight. Or, maybe, it was…disappointment.

The thoughts tightened the muscles in his jaw as he glanced toward the main house with its three stories of windows and tall, curved portico. He would have thought she would confide something so important. She talked to him about everything that mattered to her. Or so he’d thought.

The party rental truck had arrived with tables, chairs and table settings for five hundred guests. The florist was there, too. Workers darted back and forth from the boxy white vehicles pushing dollies laden with cartons or bearing bouquets and sprays of white roses and gardenias. A crew placed garlands of flowers wrapped in ribbon around the front fountain. Another ant-like procession of personnel, all bearing centerpieces, headed around back to the white tent that had been set up for dining.

Gabe knew Addie wouldn’t be in the middle of all the activity. Her preparatory work was done, and it would be her nature to stay out of everyone’s way. Finding her on more than a hundred acres of hedges, wind breaks, and wooded land surrounding a private lake might have been nearly impossible, too, had it not been for the sound of the riding lawn mower. Following the muffled roar, he found one of the uniformed gardeners making a final pass over the three acres of lawn down by the tennis courts and asked him where he could find his boss.

Three minutes later Gabe found her behind a boxwood hedge near the garage. Dressed in her familiar denim, she was on her knees at the sprinkler controls.

The tall wall of foliage hid both her and the six-car garage from view of the activity taking place on the opposite side of the main house.

“It wouldn’t do to have the sprinklers go off and soak all the guests,” she said, sensing his presence before he could say a word. “Weddings are supposed to be memorable, but I don’t think that’s the sort of memory your mother would appreciate.”

Rising, she turned from her task, her glance moving from the V of sweat darkening the neck of his shirt to his loose gray running shorts. For the first time in memory, her smile lacked the easy welcome he had grown so accustomed to seeing.

“How was your ride yesterday?” she asked, sounding more at ease than she looked. “I hear you took out the new stallion. He’s magnificent, isn’t he?”

The latest addition to his father’s show stable was indeed an incredible animal. Addie could probably discuss its pedigree and prizes equally as well as she could the ancestry and awards of his mother’s Victorian roses. If something was alive, she was interested in it. But all he wanted to discuss was the little matter she’d failed to mention on her own.

“Why didn’t you tell me you’re engaged?”

The question didn’t seem to surprise her. It was the accusation behind it that seemed to throw her a little.

It threw him, too.

Confusion entered her dark eyes. “Because it isn’t the sort of thing we usually discuss.”

“We talk about a lot of things, Addie. When I mentioned that Olivia said you had news, you only told me about your project. Something like this seems a little more important. Don’t you think?”

“They’re both important to me.” She still couldn’t identify what she’d seen in his eyes yesterday. But the intensity of it had left her with a knot in her stomach the size of an amaryllis bulb. “But you brought up the research,” she reminded him, feeling that knot tighten. “There wasn’t time to talk about anything else, anyway.”

“You could have mentioned the other first.”

“I suppose I could have,” she conceded, though it wasn’t something she’d felt at all compelled to bring up with him. “I was just more interested in talking to you about the project. We’ve never talked about my personal life.”

Over the years, she and Gabe had talked about everything from pets to his political ambitions. Other than for immediate family, they’d rarely talked about their personal relationships. She had always known who he was dating, though. All she had to do was pick up the society page or listen to gossip among the staff to know who he was seeing, or if he was too busy to be seeing anyone at all. She didn’t believe for a moment that he was interested in her as anything other than a friend and sounding board, but if he’d wanted to find out anything about her, the stable master or the chauffeur were as good a source as Olivia and Ina, the downstairs maid. Gossip was practically a sport among certain members of the staff.

He must have understood her logic. The accusation slowly faded from his silver-gray eyes. The disappointment, however, remained.

“So we haven’t discussed your personal life before,” he admitted, sounding as if he hadn’t even realized she had one. “Maybe we should now. Who’s the lucky guy?”

She tipped her head, studying the lingering discontent carved in his handsome features. She had no reason not to discuss her fiancé with him. She imagined the men would even like each other, given that they shared the same strong sense of fairness, stubbornness and a consuming drive to succeed. It just felt a little awkward to talk about the man she was to marry with Gabe looking at her as if she were doing something wrong.

“Scott Baker.” Her right hand closed over the pretty-but-modest diamond on her left one. She’d told Scott that she didn’t need an engagement ring, that a wedding band would do just fine. But Scott was like Gabe in his sense of tradition, too. “He’s a coach at Camelot High.”

“How long have you known him?”

“Six months. I met him at a basketball game.”

Gabe’s dark eyebrows merged. “I didn’t know you were into basketball.”

“I’m not. Wasn’t,” she corrected. “I went to a game with Ina and Eddy.” Eddy was the stable master. Aside from being one of the maids, Ina was also his wife. “Their son is on the team.”

“Has he been at the school long?”

“Shane?” she asked, thinking of Ina’s son.

“Scott,” Gabe muttered, planting his hands on his hips. “Do people around here know him? Do you know him? How can you even be sure you love the guy? Six months is hardly any time at all.”

The insistence in his deep voice was mirrored in his stance. He looked very big, very male and with all that muscle tense and bunched, he would have intimidated the daylights out of most men and any woman who didn’t recognize the look in his narrowed eyes.

He had the same intent look he got whenever he contemplated a responsibility that threatened to get out of control.

He took his responsibilities quite seriously. All of them.

She just hadn’t realized he still thought of her as one.

She could practically feel the tension radiating from his big, rather incredible body. Yet, her own anxiety suddenly began to ease.

“He’s taught there for five years. And, yes,” she replied, thinking of his last question. “I think I do love him.

“You know, Gabe,” she continued, smiling now that she understood what was going on, “you sound just like I’d imagine my father would. I know you told him you’d look out for me, but that was years ago. I was barely nineteen. I’m twenty-five now.” Affection entered her tone. “I appreciate your concern. I really do,” she said, meaning it from the bottom of her heart. Except for her father, she’d never known anyone whose concern meant more to her. “But it really isn’t necessary.”

He didn’t appear convinced.

“Scott is a nice man,” she assured him. Gabe wouldn’t relinquish an obligation easily. But it was long past time he let go of this one. “My friends like him, my mother is thrilled and, just between you and me, I really don’t need another dad. Just be my friend and wish me well. Okay?”

For a moment Gabe said nothing. He simply studied the delicate lines of her face while the sense of calm he’d always felt around her slipped into oblivion. He hadn’t even been thinking of the private promise he had made her father before he’d died, but the vow to make sure she stayed safe allowed him a handy, if not perfectly logical excuse for his behavior.

Latching on to it, he tried to ignore the strange void in his gut.

“I’m not trying to be your dad. But it sounds like you could use an older brother,” he muttered, not sure that role fit, either. “Just for the record, what do you mean by you think you love him?”

The challenge killed her smile. “I mean just that. I doubt it’s something any one of us can know for certain…”

“I would sure hope we could.”

“What I mean,” she continued, quietly overlooking his interruption, “is that none of us can know something like that for sure until we’ve been in the relationship for a few years. I don’t think real love is there at first. There are feelings that can lead to it, but the real thing has to grow. It’s kind of like a seed,” she explained, sounding like her father now. “Some plants flourish. Others struggle. Only with time and care can you tell.”

Gabe opened his mouth, and promptly shut it again. He wanted to know why she would marry someone without being as certain as she possibly could about how she felt. He wanted to know what she would do if a few years passed and she discovered that what she’d felt hadn’t been love at all. When he married, he wanted the certainty. He needed to know he was entering the relationship with everything going in its favor. What he absolutely did not want was a relationship that started out with only seeds of something that might grow into something lasting. He wanted those seeds rooted, stemmed and blooming.

That was precisely why he hadn’t felt any urgency over the advice he’d been given to find a wife. He knew that the woman he married had to be someone people could admire, and look up to. Someone the public could love. But before the public met her, he had to do all that first.

The direction of his thoughts had him backing off. So did the fact that he was about to ask Addie if she truly knew what she was doing. The wary way she watched him made it clear she no longer thought he was rowing with both oars.

His cousin’s kids saved him from asking, anyway. He heard his name hollered from a distance. It was echoed a second later. The wall of leaves muffled the small, male voices, but there was no mistaking the boys’ determination to find him as their shouting came closer.

“Gabe? Are you down here?”

“Gabe? Where are you?”

“Be right there!” he called back.

“Mom said to play soccer with us, and Trevor won’t let me be goalie.”

“I want to be goalie! And Kenny hid the ball!”

“Did not!” came a third voice. “Tyler did.”

Looking far more frustrated than he sounded, Gabe shoved his fingers through his windblown hair. “Give me a minute! Okay?”

“You’d probably better go now.” Addie stared at the beautifully muscled underside of his arm. Realizing what she was doing, aware that the view somehow changed the quality of the knot in her stomach, she jerked her glance to look past his broad shoulders. “It sounds as if you’ll be playing referee.”

The man was a state senator. He influenced the social and economic welfare of more than seven million people. He had offices in Camelot and Richmond and staff in both places. Yet, here, today, he would baby-sit.

The thought would have made Addie smile had it not been for the tension she could still feel radiating toward her. It seemed to tug at the knot, tightening it.

“I’d better go, too,” she said, stepping back, motioning behind her. “I have a section of sprinklers that’ll go off in a few minutes if I don’t change the timer.”

The boys called out again, their voices only yards away. Gabe stepped back himself—only to stop and glance to where she’d returned to the long row of gauges and digital displays.

“Where will you be tonight?”

“Helping my mom in the main house,” she replied, not sure why he’d want to know, too anxious for him to leave to ask. Had she considered it before yesterday, she would have honestly thought he’d be happy for her. An engagement was special. But all she sensed in him was an inexplicable sort of displeasure.

His only response was the lift of his chin before two dark-haired future heartbreakers barreled around the end of the tall hedge. He swooped the smaller one onto his back with the ease of a man completely comfortable with children and their exuberance. A boy of about seven received a hair ruffling that had him giggling before he took off, backward, chattering to the man who could easily have passed for their dad.

Addie turned to her task once more, trying to remember which valves she’d shut off, which she hadn’t. She too rarely encountered members of the extended Kendrick family to know whom the younger ones belonged to. She wasn’t like certain members of the staff who followed every word written about every Kendrick, either. The only one she’d ever been interested in enough to read about was Gabe. And she couldn’t begin to imagine why he would care where she would be later—unless he was still concerned about having some duty to her dad.

Maybe you need an older brother, he’d said.

She’d never had a brother, but she supposed that, in many ways, she already thought of him as one.

She hadn’t always, though, she thought, opening the timer box to finish what she’d started to do ten minutes ago. When she was nine years old, and he fifteen, she’d thought of him as the smartest boy in the world. Then she’d turned ten and she had thought of him more as her knight in shining armor.

Timer buttons clicked as she turned off section after section. She could still remember the day he’d made that transition in her mind, how wet and miserable the weather had turned. And how frightened she’d been of the older kids who’d tried to take her lunch money from her at the bus stop. She could remember Gabe, too. How big and brave and commanding he’d seemed even then.

He had been enrolled in Briarwood at the time, an exclusive prep school miles in the opposite direction of the public school she’d attended. He hadn’t let the fact that he’d gone so far out of his way, or that he would be seriously late, stop him from helping her, though. He’d seen what was going on, rescued her with the cool, steel-eyed glare that still had lesser males backing away and driven her to school himself. He’d pulled right up in front of Thomas Jefferson Elementary in the shiny new Jag his parents had given him for his sixteenth birthday and let her out as if he were her own private chauffeur.

She’d been in serious puppy love with him at ten, and had a wild crush on him as a teenager. As a young woman, she’d been in awe of him and all he was accomplishing, and terribly grateful for his support when her father had died.

It had been Gabe who had helped her through the deep sadness she’d felt at the loss of her dad, because Gabe had loved and respected him, too. And it had been Gabe who had prevented even more upheaval when it had appeared that she and her mom would have to move from the groundskeeper’s cottage.

The cottage had been her parents’ home ever since they’d lost their farm in Kentucky some twenty years before and gone to work for the Kendricks. The tidy little house just inside the woods was a benefit provided to the groundskeeper as part of his salary. It was their home when Addie had been born. But since her father no longer held that position, she and her mom weren’t entitled to stay there.

Mrs. Kendrick had been terribly kind. She had waited nearly two weeks after the funeral before she’d asked Addie’s mom to move up to the servants’ quarters in the main house so she could hire another man. Mrs. Kendrick had assumed that at nineteen, Addie would be on her own, that she would either go back to school or get a job in town.

Everything had happened so quickly that Addie hadn’t had time to consider her own plans. Her only concern had been for her mom. The thought of leaving the cottage and the memories her mom had shared there with her dad had all but devastated the grieving woman.

Addie had never known her mom to be anything less than stoic. She’d also had no idea what to do to help her until Gabe had suggested that she take over her father’s job herself.

She would never have thought of approaching Mrs. Kendrick on her own. Aside from being totally intimidated by the famous woman and not at all accustomed to speaking up for herself, she hadn’t felt qualified to take over such a responsible position. But Gabe had insisted there was no one better qualified, and reminded her of how she had helped her father with his chores from the time she’d been old enough to dig in the dirt. There wasn’t a tree, flower or stretch of lawn on the property that she couldn’t propagate, name or mow. Because her father’s ailing heart had slowed him down so much, she had already dropped out of college to help him so he wouldn’t work so hard. Or lose his job. In his final weeks she’d been handling his job alone as it was.

A young woman definitely hadn’t been Mrs. Kendrick’s idea of a proper groundskeeper. But she hadn’t wanted to take Rose from her home, either, so she had given Addie a six-month trial.

That had been five years ago. As grateful as Addie had been to the woman then, she’d been even more grateful to her son.

The problem was that now she wasn’t sure what she felt toward Gabe beyond something too complicated to question.

Being her practical, pragmatic self, she didn’t question it. She simply accepted that she had always cared for him, always would and headed off to make sure the florists didn’t damage her topiaries with their ribbons and tiny white lights before she had to join her mother in the main house. All the rooms would need straightening while the houseguests were at the wedding.

Addie didn’t usually pull housekeeping duty. On the few occasions she had, she’d truly hated it, which meant she definitely wasn’t looking forward to it now. Knowing she would be in the main house that evening only added to the disquiet she couldn’t quite seem to shake.

That odd unease accompanied her on her way to the house a little after six o’clock that evening. The ceremony had begun, and with everyone’s attention on the couple exchanging vows by the reflecting pond, no one noticed her slip from the opening in the trees a city block away and hurry across the cobblestone drive between the main house and the garage.

The side door, or the servants’ entrance as it was known by the family, led to a utility room and on into the kitchen.

Addie didn’t mind being in those particular rooms. The kitchen was Olivia’s domain, and Addie had found the open space with its miles of glass-fronted cabinets, hanging pots and herbs growing on the windowsills to be as warm and inviting as the woman herself. She’d just never been comfortable in the mansion’s more vast and elegant spaces. Mostly, she suspected, because she knew she didn’t belong there.

As a child, she could use only the servants’ door when she needed her mother. And never was she allowed beyond the doors of the kitchen and servants’ areas themselves. She had been a teenager before she’d set foot in the main foyer, and then only because she’d helped her dad bring in and hang the fresh greens they’d made into holiday wreaths and garlands for the staircases and mantels.

As she headed inside now, she carried a bunch of brilliant red and gold asters she’d cut for the servants’ dining table. She didn’t come to the main house often, but when she did she always brought flowers for Olivia and the maids to enjoy.

The scent of something buttery and delicious drew her through the utility room with its deep sink and cabinets for boots, servants’ coats and cleaning supplies. Grabbing an old china teapot for a vase from a cupboard, and scissors from a drawer, she smiled at Olivia working at the center island and stopped at the sink to arrange the flowers.

“Come on in here and do that,” Olivia called, rubbing her nose with the back of her forearm since her hands were covered with flour. “As long as there’s no bugs, you can use my sink.

“Oh, you brought my favorite,” she observed, seeing what Addie carried when she entered the high-ceilinged room. “I just love those bright colors.” As long as her arm was up, she nudged at the white headband holding back her tight salt-and-pepper curls. “So, did you see her?”

“Who?” Addie asked, bundling vase and flowers past the island.

“Tess, of course,” Olivia replied, as if she couldn’t imagine who else they’d be discussing. “The bride?”

“I didn’t see anyone.” Preoccupied, trying not to be, she set her flowers on the spotless counter and turned on the faucet. “I came up by the garages.”

“Well, she looks like a vision,” the loquacious cook pronounced. “I can’t begin to imagine what that gown cost, but I’m sure I could feed half the county on what they’re spending out there.” She lifted a hand toward a golden-brown casserole on the stove, flour drifting like snow. “We’re having tuna noodle as soon as we get finished up here. There’s plenty if you don’t feel like cooking for yourself tonight. I’m making pecan pies for lunch tomorrow, for those who aren’t leaving first thing. First batch will be out in ten minutes if you want a slice.”

Olivia’s pies were pure sin. Addie would have loved some, too, had her appetite not disappeared on her way into the house.

“Would you mind if I take it home with me?”

“Of course I don’t. I wouldn’t have offered it if I didn’t want you to have it,” she replied with a tsk.

“I don’t suppose you peeked inside the tent to see how everything looked,” she continued, sprinkling ice water into her stainless steel bowl.

The ends of Addie’s short, blunt-cut hair swung as she shook her head.

“Didn’t think you would,” Olivia concluded, adding a pinch of salt. “You’re not nosy enough. Must get that from your mother. Not that she isn’t nosy,” she qualified. “She just doesn’t talk that much about what she knows. Anyway, I didn’t get down there, either. But I hear that the extra tent behind the big one is the caterer’s kitchen. Your mom said they have fifty people running around down there putting the final touches on beef Wellington and salmon Oscar. Can’t imagine not working in my own space.”

Her brow pleated as she gathered the ball of dough from the bowl and plopped it on the marble rolling board. “What are you doing up here yourself? I’d have thought that after all the hours you put in the past week, you’d be taking the evening off and spending it with your fiancé.”

Addie finished filling the vase and reached for a stem of crimson red asters. “Mom needs the help.”

There was so much to do with all the extra houseguests. More people created more laundry, more cleaning, more messes and Addie knew her mom was already exhausted. Even with Ina and the new girl working, Addie also knew her mom wouldn’t quit tonight until everything was as close to perfect as she could get it. All week her mother had left the cottage an hour earlier than her usual 6:00 a.m. and returned far later than her usual eight, after dessert had been served and the dishes all done.

Her mom had always prided herself on her ability to run the Kendrick household to Mrs. Kendrick’s rather exacting standards. But since Addie’s dad had died, her mom had become even more obsessed with doing her job exactly right.

Addie would have felt incredibly guilty knowing she was resting and her mom was not.

“I’m sure she’ll appreciate it,” the cook confirmed on her way back from the double-wide refrigerator, cold marble rolling pin in hand. “There’s not a one of us who couldn’t use an extra hand right now. Can’t believe the hours we’ve put in to get everything ready and stay on top of everyone’s needs. But that’s what we’re paid for,” she murmured philosophically.

“So,” she continued easily, putting her shoulders into rolling out a quick neat circle of dough, “what kind of wedding are you having?”

“Something small,” Addie’s mom pronounced, walking in from the laundry room with an armload of freshly laundered and folded towels. Addie swore her mother had radar for hearing. She could pick up a conversation three hundred yards away. “Or maybe they should just elope. I’d be willing to pay for that myself.”

Consideration joined the fatigue in Rose’s eyes as she glanced toward her daughter. Even after running herself ragged all day, her dark hair and black uniform looked as painfully neat as always. “You know, Addie, if you did that,” she said, setting her stack on the counter, “you and Scott could get married whenever you want. You wouldn’t have to spend all that time planning and reserving and waiting for a dress to come in.”

“You’re not paying for my wedding, Mom.”

“Do you have a date in mind?” Olivia asked.

Addie hesitated.

“No,” Rose replied, speaking for her daughter as she pulled one of her ever-present lists from her pocket. “I keep telling her she needs to do that so we can reserve the church and get invitations ordered.”

“You just said they should elope.”

“Well, they need to do one or the other. It’s not good to leave something like this hanging. Long engagements aren’t necessary.”

Olivia folded her circle of dough in two and expertly slipped it into a glass pie plate. “Are you waiting until after you graduate?”

Addie opened her mouth.

“I certainly hope not,” Rose insisted, before Addie could say a word. “That would be over a year and a half from now. She’d be graduating sooner if she hadn’t taken those extra courses Gabe talked her into,” she murmured, disapproval in her tone. “What’s an elementary school teacher going to do with botany classes, anyway?”

“They did help her discover that old garden outside of town,” Olivia reminded her.

“Well, that’s taking up her time, too. She could be using the effort she’s putting into that, into planning her wedding.”

While Olivia helpfully pointed out that Addie could probably do both, and the women proceeded to debate the financial merits of eloping rather than having a wedding, Addie diligently forced her attention to the stems she carefully arranged in the bright vase.

Losing herself in the simple beauty of the flowers, appreciating the colors, textures and pretty shapes, appealed far more to her than considering how little her own opinion mattered when it came to deciding her future. The cook and her mom talked as if she weren’t even there, as if she were as invisible to them as she was expected to make herself as she went about her daily chores.

Being invisible was familiar. So was her mom’s criticism and the guilt Addie always felt when her mom found fault with the choices she’d made. Both of her parents had wanted more for her than to tend someone else’s home and land. Addie’s dad had insisted on college. But her mom had never thought that four years of college was necessary. She’d considered secretarial school more practical because Addie could have a career and leave the estate that much sooner.

Addie had never felt any great need to leave the sprawling grounds. She loved working with the plants and the land and she had far more freedom being outdoors than her mother did working inside. But she hadn’t wanted to disappoint either of her parents, so she had decided that she would teach because she herself loved to learn. And, being practical, there would always be a need for teachers.

Her mother had ultimately, grudgingly, been satisfied with that. But she had also made it clear that she thought the extra classes Addie had taken last winter a waste of time and money. Addie had loved the botany courses, but they couldn’t be used toward her major, and taking them had kept her from taking classes that could. Her mom had thought Gabe quite cavalier for suggesting them, too, because people like the Kendricks could afford to indulge casual interests, but people like them definitely could not.

Addie swallowed past the familiar sense of defeat tightening her chest. Her mom had always insisted that setting one’s sights too high resulted only in disappointment, and she wanted badly to save her from that.

Addie knew her mom meant well. But it was so hard to work for something when someone was always pulling back on your leash. She couldn’t count the times her mom had remarked on how long it was taking her to get her degree. Because she needed her job to afford school, she worked full-time from spring through mid-December and attended college in Petersburg, seventy miles away, during winter term. A term a year was not exactly a land speed record.

Her mom also made a point of occasionally mentioning that she could have had an office job by now, and that at the rate she was going, she might not ever graduate. Considering that she would then have no degree and no training, she’d have no choice but to spend the rest of her life as the Kendricks’ groundskeeper, a fate of which her mother definitely did not approve.

At least with her engagement, the possibility of living on the estate and serving the Kendricks for the rest of her life had been eliminated. Now, her mother’s focus was simply on getting her married.

The way her mother kept pushing, it was almost as if she was afraid Scott would back out on Addie if she didn’t commit to a date soon. When her mother had said before that a long engagement wasn’t necessary, what she’d really meant was that a long engagement could be broken.

He has a good job, she reminded her at every opportunity. And he’s good to you. That’s as good as it gets, Addie. A man like that won’t wait around forever.

It had done Addie no good to point out that her mom would have to move to the main house once Addie quit her job there. Her mom had said that after so long she was ready to move, anyway. The cottage wasn’t the same without Tom, and she’d be closer to her work.

Before her mom could start in on any of her arguments again, Addie turned with the artfully arranged bouquet, set it on the table where the servants ate and grabbed the towels.

“Tell me where these go and what else you want me to do.”

Oblivious to the impact of her comments, Rose headed for the cabinet-and drawer-lined hall between the kitchen and the laundry.

“You can take those up to Marie in the family wing,” she continued while Olivia walked over to stick her nose into the blooms. “She’s trying to make some order out of the bedrooms. I’ll do the same in the guest wing after I help Ina down here.”

Pulling out a plastic basket loaded with rags and furniture polish, she handed it to Addie and stuffed in a plastic bag for trash. “Ina is running the vacuum in the living room and dining room and straightening both. If you’ll bring in the glasses and ashtrays from the library and straighten up in there, we should be finished well before people start trickling back in.

“And, Addie,” she said, checking over the fresh jeans and long-sleeved burgundy T-shirt she’d changed into, “when you’re finished, go out the front door. People will be milling around out back by then.”

Addie thought nothing of the reminder to remain out of sight. She’d heard so many similar requests over the years that she simply did it automatically, slipping around like a small ghost whenever family or guests were near.

She moved that way now as she used the butler’s door that led into the huge marble foyer and hurried up the nearest side of the curving, chandelier-lit double staircase to leave the towels on the antique sideboard at the top of it. She didn’t know which of the rooms Marie was in, but her mom or the new maid couldn’t miss seeing them there.

She barely glanced at the gilt-framed landscape hanging above the sideboard, or the brass sconces flanking the enormous work of art. Anxious to escape the nagging sense that she didn’t belong there, she hurried right back down the stairs, her footsteps soundless on the thick burgundy runner, and headed across the spoke pattern in the marble tiles that radiated from beneath the foyer’s round entry table.

She had no idea which rooms were whose upstairs. Except to drop off the towels just now, she’d never set foot up there before. She knew several of the rooms downstairs, though. As her dad had done before her, she brought in the garlands for the fireplace mantels every December.

The monotonous hum of the vacuum cleaner grew louder as she passed the enormous living room with its groupings of gold damask sofas and chairs and butter-colored faille walls. She kept going, the hum receding, as marble floor gave way to a Persian hall runner, and walked through a set of carved mahogany doors.

The lingering scent of expensive cigars mingled with more expensive leather, old books and lemon oil. Empty cocktail glasses and soda cans occupied end tables and the coffee table across from the open television armoire.

Intent on getting in, getting the job done and getting out, she left her basket on the round game table, opened the wide floor-to-ceiling French doors to let in some air and turned to pick up pieces of a children’s game from the floor.

Applause filtered through the open doors. Moments later the lilting strains of “Ode to Joy” drifted inside.

They were playing the recessional.

Addie sat back on her heels. It wasn’t just being where she didn’t belong that made her feel especially uneasy tonight. It was knowing that her mom was probably right. Scott was a good man. He wouldn’t want to wait forever.

He wanted to marry her now. He’d told her so when he’d proposed three weeks ago. He’d mentioned it again when she’d seen him the night before last. Though her mother didn’t know, Scott definitely did not want to wait until she graduated. He wanted to help her through school himself.

She didn’t know why she hesitated to set a date.

Setting a handful of plastic game pieces on the table, she stepped through the doors and onto the curved balcony. Down by the reflecting pool with its garland-wrapped Roman columns and cascades of white flowers, she could clearly see the hundreds of gowned and tuxedoed guests. They occupied row upon row of white chairs perfectly angled to have caught the sunset.

Now, in the fading twilight, the glow of hurricane candles lit the aisle, adding to the radiance of the bride as she and her groom moved down the length of white, petal-strewn carpet. A dozen attendants in as many shades of lavender followed the trailing swath of white gown and veil, along with the beaming parents and guests a few moments later.

Two dozen waiters in white dinner jackets funneled from the gazebo, bearing silver trays of champagne to carry into the elegant crowd. The string quartet continued to play, the sounds lovely and classical. The tiny white lights the florists had strung began to twinkle everywhere.

Addie stepped closer to the railing. It didn’t matter that she was apparently suffering bridal jitters herself, the scene was magical.

She would never know such a wedding. Even if she’d had the means to create the fairy tale, she couldn’t imagine being in front of that many people. Or having to converse with them afterward. Her knees would freeze, her tongue would tie and she would forget everything she ever knew about anything of any interest at all.

The scene absorbed her, drew her closer—and kept her from wondering why she felt more and more trapped.

She could see Gabe on the fringes of the milling assembly. He shook the hand of an older gentleman, then gallantly kissed the hand of the gray-haired matron with him. He moved on, clapping another guest on the back, buzzing a kiss across the cheek of a lady wrapped in a gold lamé stole. Two men came up to him, offering their hands as if to introduce themselves. With his back to her, she couldn’t see what he did, but she knew he would have accepted their handshakes, made them feel welcome and at ease. He had a gift for that. He would draw them out, listen to what they had to say. He had a gift for that, as well. She knew, because he’d done it so very often with her.

He would have been easy to pick out of nearly any crowd. He stood taller than the rest, his presence more powerful, more commanding somehow. He definitely commanded her attention in the moments before he turned and his glance swept the empty space behind him.

As if he knew he was being watched, his glance searched the house a moment before he started to turn back. As he did, his glance moved up.

Her heart gave an odd little jerk when he seemed to notice her. For several unnerving heartbeats, he stared at where she stood half-hidden in the shadows.

The dim lighting made it impossible to clearly see his expression. Still, remembering how unhappy he’d seemed with her, he managed to knot the nerves in her stomach once more before a woman in a strapless gown approached him with another gentleman and he turned to take two flutes of champagne from a passing waiter.

Stepping back into the shadows, she turned to do what she should have been doing all along. No good could come from being idle. Her mother had drilled that into her from the time she’d entered school. Her father had taught her that it was all right for a person to not be doing something so long as they were using that time to recharge their batteries with nature, a long walk or a good book.

All she’d been doing was wasting time.

The need to escape felt more urgent somehow. Fueled by that restlessness, she snapped on all the brass table lamps in the emphatically masculine room, emptied two heavy ashtrays into the plastic bag, and added the remains of chips from a napkin-lined wicker basket and the empty pop cans. She picked up a couple of investment magazines from the long, red leather sofa, added them to a stack by one of the matching wing chairs and gave the dark mahogany tables a quick polishing with a dust rag. The men and the kids had obviously hung out there part of the day.

She had just moved beneath the large painting of hunting dogs above the desk and was adding the last of the glasses to the tray to take to the kitchen when the squeak of a board outside the open French doors caused her head to jerk up.

Gabe stood at the threshold. In each hand he held a glass of champagne.

It wasn’t until he stepped inside that she realized the champagne was for her.

Chapter Three

A ddie’s hand slipped from the tray as she watched Gabe cross toward her. She had never seen him in a tuxedo before. Not in person, anyway. She’d seen photos of him in one in Newsweek and in the newspaper, all taken at charity or political fund-raisers. She especially recalled a picture of him at an embassy reception in Washington. At the time, she remembered thinking of how sophisticated and worldly he truly must be to move in such circles.

She had often wondered since then if he simply suffered formality as part of his heritage and his job, because she saw him only at his most casual. As he stopped in front of her now, she could see for herself that he wore refinement as comfortably as he did his old college sweats. The beautifully cut black tux just made him seem a lot more imposing.

Confused by his presence, she blinked at what he held. His big body blocked her view of everything but the studs in his blinding white shirt, the blatantly sensual fullness of his mouth and the guardedness in his quicksilver eyes when he held out one of the crystal flutes of bubbling wine.

“Please,” he said, when she hesitated to take what he offered. Behind him, soft strains of music and the steady drone of a hundred conversations drifted inside. “I want to apologize, Addie. I’m sorry for the way I acted this morning.”

He raised the glass a little higher.

Not wanting to be rude, she cautiously took it. “You don’t need to apologize to me,” she murmured, her glance on the bubbles rising in the delicate glass. She felt terribly awkward standing there in her plain shirt and jeans, even if they were what she considered good clothes. When they were outside talking while she worked, the lines of social demarcation didn’t seem so distinct. Here, with him radiating sophistication and surrounded by the trappings of his family’s wealth, she felt as if she should shrink into the walls.

“I do need to,” he insisted, his deep voice thoughtful. “I was out of line. My only excuse is that you caught me off guard.

“I’ve known you forever,” he reminded her. “Between that and the promise I made your dad, I guess I was just feeling a little…protective.”

“You have a gift for understatement,” she said quietly, trying to ignore the odd tug at her heart.

“Okay. Make that a lot protective,” he allowed, since he had gone a little overbearing on her. “And I really am sorry.”

Looking as thoughtful as he sounded, he slowly turned the stem of his glass in his blunt-tipped fingers. “You reminded me this morning that you’re perfectly capable of taking care of yourself. I’m quite aware that you’re a grown woman,” he assured her, repeating what she’d so calmly pointed out. “Since you hardly need looking after, I guess all that leaves me to do is hope that this Scott does right by you…and to toast the bride-to-be.”

He lifted his glass, offered an apologetic smile.

“Your father wanted only the best for you, Addie. He never wanted you to have to worry or want or have to settle for anything less than what would make you happy.” His broad shoulders lifted in a conceding shrug. “That’s all I want for you, too.”

Addie’s fingers tightened on her own stem as he tapped the rim of his flute to hers. Crystal rang, the sound of celebration vibrating in the sudden quiet hanging between them.

The cheerful note seemed terribly out of place. Her father’s wishes for her, Gabe’s wishes, twisted hard at her heart.

He never wanted you to settle for anything less than what would make you happy.

…anything less…

The ringing died, but the words continued to echo in her head. Gabe was doing exactly what she had thought he would have done when he’d first heard her news, wishing her luck, congratulating her, wanting the best for her. She should have felt relieved that everything had gone back to normal. Yet nothing felt normal at all.

She could again feel the unfamiliar tension in him. It snaked toward her, knotting the nerves in her stomach, tugging her toward him and making her aware of him in ways she had no business considering at all.

Afraid he would see her trembling if she raised her glass, she set it on the desk and focused on one of the bubbles clinging stubbornly to the inside of the crystal. While others raced past it to burst on top, it held its own, determined to hold its ground.

Or, maybe, just afraid to break free.

She found it truly pathetic that she could relate so easily to a bubble. There were things she wanted, but there was so much more she was afraid to even consider because the dreams were so far beyond her reach. Her mother was right. Setting one’s sights too high only led to disappointment. Clinging to what she had seemed so much safer.

Gabe’s glass joined hers. “You’re still upset with me.”

“No. I…no,” she repeated.

“Then, what is it?”

She shook her head, her focus on the neat pleats in his cummerbund.

“Addie,” he said, and slipped his fingers under her chin. “Talk to me.”

Her heart jerked wildly as he tipped her face toward his.

“I’m not really sure what to say.”

“Just say you forgive me.”

“I forgive you.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, and smiled because he did.

“I’m going to miss you,” he admitted, that smile finally making its way into his eyes. “It’s not going to be the same here without you.”

“I’m not going anywhere for a while.”

“Yeah, but you will. And I can’t imagine that your husband would appreciate me showing up on your doorstep just because I need to vent or get advice or have you tell me my ego is getting in the way of my job.”

She wanted to tell him he could come to her anytime, but she couldn’t seem to find her voice. The subtle, sensual brush of his thumb over her cheek froze the words in her throat.

That touch, gentle and innocent as it was, seemed to be toying with a mental lock she’d long ago secured into place.

As a girl, she had fantasized about being in his arms. As a woman, she had long ago accepted that he was light-years out of her league and felt incredibly lucky just to have his friendship. Now, breathing in the arousing combination of aftershave and warm male, the heat of his hand seeping into her skin, she could barely think at all.

He brushed her cheek once more, the smile in his eyes slowly fading. In those smoke-gray depths, she saw what looked very much like a struggle as his glance followed the slow, mesmerizing motion of his thumb. It was almost as if he were considering the feel of her skin, savoring it, committing it to memory—and wondering the whole time if he should be touching her at all.

“Be happy, Addie,” he murmured, and leaned to touch his lips to her cheek.

Gabe had felt her go still at his touch. Now he could swear she wasn’t even breathing. Beneath his lips her skin felt like satin. Her scent, something fresh, light and amazingly provocative, filled his lungs. She felt impossibly soft, smelled incredible and when he drew back far enough to see the corner of her lush, unadorned mouth, his heart seemed to be beating a little faster than it had just a moment ago.

He hadn’t counted on that. Or on the way her stillness invited him to stay right where he was. He was close enough to feel her breath tremble out against his cheek, close enough to see her lips part as she slowly drew in more air.

Drawn by her softness, he slipped his fingers from her chin, tracing the delicate line of her jaw. The feathery crescents of her lashes drifted down. The delicate cords of her neck convulsed as she swallowed.

She wanted his touch.

Something inside him tightened at the thought, snaring him, pulling him back down when he should have been pulling away. He touched his mouth to hers, a soft brush of contact that made his heart bump against his ribs.

He did it again, and felt her pulse race where his fingers rested against the silken skin of her neck. Sliding one arm around her, he eased her forward until her body touched his.

“Kiss me back,” he whispered, and felt something molten and liquid pour through his veins when she sighed—and did.

Gabe hadn’t quite known what he would do when he’d climbed the stairs to the balcony and entered the room. It wasn’t like him to start anything without a game plan. He was the guy who never went into any meeting without a plan and backup and maybe a couple more contingencies for good measure. He liked to have all of his bases covered and to know as much about the other side as his own so he wouldn’t be caught unprepared.

He definitely hadn’t been prepared this time.

When he’d walked in, all he’d known for certain was that nothing had felt the same since he’d learned of her engagement, that he was sorry he’d acted like a jerk and that he couldn’t leave in the morning without telling her he wished her well. They had known each other too long to let his knee-jerk reaction cloud their relationship.

He also knew that he had not planned on kissing her.

He most definitely hadn’t planned on the impact of having her small, supple body in his arms.

She tasted like warm honey and felt like pure heaven. Slipping his hand up her side, he curved it just beneath the gentle fullness of her breasts. He wanted to feel more of her. All of her. He pulled her closer, lifted her higher against him, drank more deeply. Their breaths joined, her flavor mingled with his.

He edged his hand up, cupped the side of her small breast. She would fit his palm perfectly. He was sure of it. And would have caved in to the temptation to find out for sure if he hadn’t just felt her stiffen.

The sudden stillness in her body had him going still himself. She was no more prepared for the slow meltdown of their senses than he had been. He was as certain of that as he was of the clawing heat low in his belly. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d kissed a woman and felt such immediate need. More important at the moment, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d kissed a woman and promptly kissed good sense goodbye.

With a ragged breath he slowly lifted his head.

Addie’s grip tightened on his biceps, her fingers clutching the finely woven fabric of his jacket as she slowly lowered her head. She couldn’t let go of him. Not yet. He had taken the strength from her legs. Or maybe, she thought, she had simply given it to him. There had been no demand. No insistence. Just a slow, sweet heat that had filled her, consumed her and left her burning everywhere he’d touched.

Her breathing was no steadier than his when she finally eased away, willing her knees to support her when her fingers slipped from his arms. Clasping her hands over her fluttering stomach, she felt the little diamond bite into her palm.

Gabe caught the flash of the stone the instant before it disappeared.

Guilt promptly slammed into desire. “I’m sorry,” he said for what felt like the umpteenth time that night. “That was a mistake.”

He shouldn’t have kissed her. He should have let her go with the safe, chaste little buzz on the cheek he’d started with and left well enough alone. He had managed to explain his behavior before. He had no idea how to do it now.

Hating how distressed she looked, he reached toward her, only to drop his hand in case she pulled away. “Are you all right?”

“You should go,” she said, her voice a thready whisper. “People will be wondering where you are.”

“You haven’t answered me.”

“I’m…I don’t know what I am,” she confessed, clearly rattled. “You really need to leave, Gabe. You’re supposed to give a toast.”

“The toast can wait.”

“No, it can’t. You shouldn’t even be here.”

Gabe couldn’t argue that. Duty called, and heaven knew he always met his obligations. With her so clearly closing herself off to him, it wasn’t as if staying would help, anyway. He had no idea what to do for damage control.

He took a step back, torn by the embarrassment and confusion so evident in her lovely eyes. Torn by the knowledge that he was the cause of her anxiety.

It wasn’t like him not to know what to do in a situation. It wasn’t like him to not know what to say. Not knowing if he should apologize again or simply say good-night, he finally decided she wanted nothing from him but his silence and said nothing before he turned and headed for the open doors.

Addie could hear his footsteps on the balcony, listened to them fade down the steps. She was shaken to the core by his kiss, the heat in it, the quiet hunger, and stunned by how shamelessly she’d melted in his arms.

Only when she could no longer hear anything but music did she release the breath she’d held and sink against the side of the desk. As she did, she turned, pushing her trembling fingers through her hair—and saw her mother in the doorway on the other side of the room.

The knot in her stomach turned to lead.

Addie had no idea how long her mom had been standing there, or just what all she’d seen. She’d obviously seen enough, though, to put the unfamiliar spots of color on her cheeks and to make her look as if she just caught her daughter kissing the devil himself.

Rose hurried in, her hands knotted, her voice a frantic whisper. “What in heaven’s name do you think you’re doing? Are you out of your mind?”

Unable to explain what had happened to herself, much less to anyone else, Addie added the untouched flutes of champagne to the tray, carefully because she was still shaking, and headed across the room to close the doors she wished now she’d never opened.

“Addie, answer me. What is going on?”

“Nothing is going on. I’m finished in here,” she replied, her eyes on her tasks as she picked up the basket of cleaning supplies on her way back to get the tray. “What else do you need me to do?”

Her mom retrieved the tray herself. “I need for you to stay away from him,” she insisted, her sensible shoes soundless on the carpet runner. Worry threaded the hushed tones of her voice. “He’s only going to cause you trouble. He’s wrong to pursue you. You’re an engaged woman.”

“He’s not pursuing me.”

“How long has this been going on?” she demanded, clearly not hearing.

“There isn’t—”

“I know what I saw,” came the truly distressed reply. “I couldn’t hear you, but there’s not a thing wrong with my vision. Oh, Addie,” she continued, her voice falling even as her anxiety rose. “I’ve always been afraid you cared too much for him. You don’t think I can see how you feel about him, but you’ve always allowed him far more influence over you than is wise. It was one thing to have a crush on him when you were a girl, but you have to forget about that man. You’re going to mess up your entire life if you think you have any sort of future with him.”

Gabe was the first to leave the next morning. He’d said his goodbyes at the party that lasted long past when he’d turned in at midnight, and slipped out at the crack of dawn while there was no danger of running into anyone who might delay his escape.

Mornings were usually his favorite time of day. He especially liked it when the sun was just coming up and the whole day stretched untouched before him. It was a time of possibilities, a clean slate, another beginning. This morning, though, as he tossed his black leather suit bag into the back seat of his black Mercedes, climbed behind the wheel and headed down the long drive to where the automatic gate swung wide to let him back into the real world, it wasn’t beginnings he was thinking about.

It was change.

Apparently he didn’t adapt to it very well.

Addie’s dad had once told him that how a man dealt with change was often the truest test of his character. Until yesterday Gabe had figured he dealt fine with it. At least he did when he instigated it himself. With something beyond his control, it was clear he’d pretty much flunked the test.

He couldn’t believe he’d kissed her like that.

He couldn’t believe how she’d responded to him, either. He’d tasted surrender in her, astonishingly immediate, and a hint of passion held ruthlessly in check. The surrender had nearly made him groan with need. The thought of removing the reins from that bridled passion had made for a decidedly restless night’s sleep.

His hands tightened on the wheel.

Addie had never been so completely on his mind as she had in the past thirty hours. And never had she been on his mind the way she had last night. More often than not when he thought of her, it would be to remember her view on some issue he needed to address—and her fervor or sympathy when she expressed it. As restrained as she seemed when others were around, he usually had no problem getting her to tell him exactly how she felt. All he had to do was ask her what she thought her father would think, and she would be the voice of reason.

During his last campaign, when his advisors had wanted to cancel appearances because he was so far ahead in the polls, she had made him see that by not staying out there and encountering more of his constituents, he would miss the opportunity to meet voters who might have needs he didn’t yet know about. And his purpose as a senator, after all, was to serve.

When he’d been going nuts with the thought of having to move his office because a youth center had gone into the building behind him and the noise through the walls was deafening, she suggested he donate soundproofing and double-pane windows.

He’d saved a fortune in time by not having to move. He’d also earned the undying gratitude of the youth facility’s director over the unexpected savings on the center’s fuel bills.

She knew her mind, knew what she felt was right, wrong or of no consequence.

For everyone but herself, anyway. He didn’t know why she did it, but she tended to downplay her own talents and abilities. It was as if she didn’t even realize she had them. The only dream he’d ever known her to cling to was college. And there, he had the feeling she was doing that as much for the memory of her father as she was herself. Tom had wanted it for her. Therefore, she would see that it was done.

As for anything else she might have wanted, she seemed to settle for whatever appeared the most reasonable, or caused the least disruption for everyone else. Sometimes he thought the trait quite generous. Mostly it annoyed him that she shortchanged herself so much.

Not that he had any business being annoyed, he reminded himself. She’d apparently had dreams he’d known nothing about and was well on her way to fulfilling them.

He just hoped she wasn’t shortchanging herself there, too.

Not liking the thought that she might well be, he turned on the radio, tuned to the morning news.

The thought of her no longer being around when he went home bothered him more than he would have thought possible.

The thought of how she’d felt in his arms bothered him even more.

He turned the radio up, telling himself to let it go. That bit of spontaneous combustion meant nothing. She had her life. He had his. And his did not allow for a relationship with his family’s engaged groundskeeper.

He needed to find some way, though, to make sure she knew he really did want only what would make her happy.

Addie felt good. Great, actually, as she hung her serviceable brown canvas jacket on a peg inside the back door of her little house and toed off her muddy rubber boots. The gladiola corms she planted every spring had to be dug up again every fall so they wouldn’t freeze over winter. She now had all eight hundred and six of them spread out on screens and would tuck them away in peat moss as soon as they were dry. She’d also separated and replanted the crowded lily of the valley crowns along the far perimeter of the property.

It had been a week since the wedding, but she was working as hard as ever.

Being her mother’s daughter, she checked those tasks off the long list she’d left on the maple kitchen table and headed for the narrow white refrigerator by the stove.

The cottage consisted of only four rooms—a little L of a kitchen that occupied the back part of the cozy living area with its stone fireplace and slip-covered furniture, two tiny bedrooms and an even tinier bath. Her mom had never been much for color. What wasn’t serviceable beige or brown was either pale mauve, pale rose or paler pink. Addie preferred brighter colors herself, though the only place she indulged that uncharacteristic bit of boldness was in her own room. There she’d hung yellow curtains on her window, pictures of sunflowers and lavender fields on her walls and covered her bed in bright Bristol blue.

She’d had plans to build a canopy over her bed, too. But there’d never been time.

The thought reminded her of her list—and that she needed to ask her assistants, Miguel and Jackson, if they could spare an additional day a week for her next month. The two part-time gardeners worked for other families, too, and their time would be at a premium, but she would need their help with the heavier pruning.

Although she could handle the hedges herself and had no problem keeping the bridle paths cleared and all the potted plants and borders free of anything dead or dying, an old oak by the stables needed a large limb removed before the coming winter’s ice cracked it off for her. The red maples that formed a canopy on a section of the lake path needed to be pruned back, and with the autumn leaves starting to fall, there was no way she could keep the lawns cleared alone.

Her empty stomach took precedence over the list at the moment, however. Unfortunately, the fridge was nearly empty. Her mom usually ate at the main house with Olivia, and Addie rarely bothered to cook for herself. She didn’t mind eating alone, but she couldn’t see much point in messing up the kitchen for one person when the local grocery store stocked perfectly edible entrees in its freezer section.

The cottage freezer bore two Lean Cuisine dinners. Selecting one, reminding herself as she did that she needed to add shopping to her list, she popped it into the microwave, grabbed a handful of Oreo cookies for an appetizer and debated whether to take a shower before she ate or wait until after. Scott had a game tonight. There wouldn’t be time to meet him before it started, but they would go for coffee afterward. Decaf for her, espresso for him. She had no idea how he managed to sleep with all that caffeine in his system, but he wasn’t the only person she knew who seemed unaffected by what would have had her clinging to the ceiling all night. Gabe drank coffee as if it were water, too.

The thought caught her unscrewing a cookie.

Screwing it back, she set it beside the others on the counter. She had to stop thinking about him. There hadn’t been a day go by in the week since the wedding that she hadn’t found him creeping into her thoughts. She had thought of him often before. Frequently, in fact. But never the way she’d been thinking of him lately.

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