west, where the property dipped toward a small ravine. “I’m going to build some terracing back there. I want everything to conform to the landscape. Then I’ll extend the wall up the sides of the property.”
“It’s going to be a lot of work.”
“I can do it at my own pace.”
Although the front of Frenchman’s Bride had been exquisitely landscaped, no one had ever paid much attention to the back. He dug up more turf. There was something about a man with a shovel, and the sweat on his neck might as well have been chocolate sauce. It wasn’t fair. Brains and brawn should be two separate categories, not bundled into one irresistible package. She needed to pull herself together before she went after him with a spoon. But where to start?
“I have to get into the attic. I heard something scampering around up there while I was in your bathroom.”
“I haven’t heard anything.”
“If you’d been upstairs you would have.”
He stopped what he was doing and propped both hands on the shovel to study her. “You’ve been trying to get into the attic ever since you started working for me.”
“I’m a housekeeper. It’s part of my job.”
“You’re not that good a housekeeper.”
Time to make her getaway. “Fine. If you want squirrels nesting over your head, I’m sure I don’t care.” She flipped her hair and turned away. Unfortunately, she wasn’t fast enough because he threw down his shovel and stepped in front of her.
“This new book has distracted me more than I thought, or I’d have caught on faster. You think your painting’s in the attic.”
Her stomach sank.
“All those stories you’ve come up with… Squirrels, looking for dishes. They were excuses.”
She tried to see a way out, but every exit was blocked, so she stuck her nose in the air. “Call it what you like.”
“Why didn’t you just come out and ask me?”
She tried to think of a polite way to explain that she didn’t trust him not to claim the painting for himself. He was a smart man. Let him figure it out.
Except he didn’t.
The bridge of his nose furrowed. He cocked his head and waited. Right then, she had one of those blinding realizations that told her she’d made a gross miscalculation. She tried to save the situation.
“It occurred to me that you might… The house is yours, after all, and…” Her voice faded. She licked her lips.
Another few seconds passed before he finally got it, and then outrage took possession of his dirty, elegant face. “You thought I’d take the painting from you?”
Her reasoning had been sound. Surely he could see that. “You do own the house. And I didn’t have enough money to hire a lawyer to figure out what my rights were.”
“You thought I’d take your painting.” It was no longer a question but a cold, hard accusation.
“We were enemies,” she pointed out.
But she’d offended his honor, and he was having none of it. He leaned down and snatched up the shovel.
“I’m sorry,” she said as he rammed it back into the ground with enough force to sever a spinal column. “Really. A miscalculation on my part.”
“This conversation is over.”
“A gross miscalculation. Come on, Colin. I really need your help. Show me how to get into the attic.”
Another clump of turf flew into the wheelbarrow. “What if your painting’s there? Aren’t you afraid I’ll steal it?”
He sounded sulky now, and sulky she could deal with. “See, this is the problem with having so many character flaws. I assume everybody else does, too.”
That chipped a bit of ice from his offended British dignity. “You don’t have that many character flaws. But you
“Does this mean you’ll show me your attic?”
“There’s nothing up there. Winnie cleaned everything out before I moved in. She might have put some of it in storage. I’m not certain.”
“Maybe you don’t know where to look. For example… there’s a hidden cupboard.” She could see that he wasn’t entirely mollified, but she also detected the first hint of curiosity. She pushed her bottom lip forward, going for a pouty, adorable look. “I really am sorry I offended your honor.”
He saw right through her, but he didn’t call her on it. She held her breath.
“All right,” he said begrudgingly. “Let me get cleaned up, and we’ll have a go at it. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
She wanted to tell him not to get cleaned up, that his grungy self was perfectly fine with her-more than fine-but she held her tongue.
Half an hour later, the sweaty stonemason had traded in his jeans for Dolce & Gabbana. He led her down the hallway to the upstairs study. “The door to the attic had to be moved for the renovation. But I didn’t want to lose wall space, so the architect got creative.” He headed for the built-in bookcases.
She’d already noticed that the center unit stuck out farther than its mates, but she’d assumed it had been built that way to accommodate ductwork. As Colin pushed on the edge of a shelf, however, the whole thing came forward a few inches, then slid to the side. Behind it, a narrow flight of stairs led to the attic.
“I’d never have found this.”
“Prepare to be disappointed.”
She followed him up the new set of stairs, then came to a stop at the top.
The attic was empty. The last time she’d been up here, her family’s dusty relics had filled the place, but now Colin’s footsteps echoed off the bare wooden floor and bounced against the faded green beadboard walls. The odds and ends of three generations of Careys had been wiped out. The Christmas boxes were gone, along with her grandmother’s steamer trunk and her grandfather’s golf clubs. Diddie’s ugly wedding china and the zippered plastic bags holding her old evening gowns had been swept away. A nail still protruded from the old paneling, but Griffin’s fraternity paddle no longer hung from it, and the basket holding Sugar Beth’s precious Care Bears collection was nowhere in sight. Everything erased. Winnie Davis had thrown away all the pieces of Sugar Beth’s history.
Dust motes swam in the shafts of sunlight coming through the small windows, and the floorboards creaked as Colin wandered toward the middle of the attic, the place where a Rubbermaid bin had once overflowed with her old dance recital costumes. “Nothing here.”
He had his back to her, which made it imperative to find her voice. “Yes, I see.” As he turned, she somehow managed to pull herself together. “The old house has a few secrets, though.”
The attic was filled with nooks and crannies from chimneys and dormers. She headed for a corner just to the left of the main chimney where she and Leeann had built tents from two broken chairs and an old stadium blanket.
Diddie had shown her how to open the cupboard long ago, but also made sure Sugar Beth wasn’t tempted to do it herself.
Sugar Beth knelt in front of a two-foot-wide section of the old bead-board paneling and felt along the base. “My grandfather lived in terror of a return to Prohibition. He said that knowing this was here let him sleep at night.” She felt for the concealed latch and released it. “There’s another latch above the ledge at the top.”
The expensive fabric of Colin’s trousers brushed her shoulder as he moved closer. “I have it.”
The paneling had warped over the years, and she pushed hard on the sides to loosen it. Colin stepped in front of her and lifted it away.
The cupboard was too small to hold one of Ash’s larger, mounted canvases-she’d known that all along-but he might have left Tallulah a smaller work. Or a larger one could have been rolled up. She’d dreamed of the moment for weeks, but now that it had come, she was afraid to look. “You do it.”
He peered inside. “It seems to be empty, but it’s hard to see.” He turned his shoulders and crouched so he
