Courtney turned toward Sid, who refused to make eye contact. “Are you okay with this? Because my guest bedroom is ready for you if you want it.”
Sid looked down, studying his big hands, and nodded. “Leslie is a busybody. She chairs the tenants association, you know. She knows everyone at Dogwood Estates and looks after all of us. I told you I’d be all right.”
“He’s right about me. I am a busybody. Nosy as the day is long.” Leslie strolled into the hospital room on a pair of flip-flops that showed her poppy-pink toenails. She leaned over Sid, resting her hand on his shoulder. “Don’t you worry about him, honey. I’ll take good care of him.”
Sid finally raised his head and met Leslie’s gaze. He gave her the tiniest of smiles.
Damn. Where was the depressed, gray man from a week ago? And after all these months of grief…What the hell?
Courtney felt a moment of selfish envy, which she immediately quashed. Had love found him a second time? Damn. He seemed utterly besotted with the beautiful, age-appropriate, apparently single Leslie. Courtney was happy for him and utterly demoralized about her own single life.
She spent twenty minutes with Leslie and Sid before concluding that her father’s best friend was in capable and loving hands. She left them, grabbed a second cup of coffee from the shop in the lobby, which had finally opened, and headed back to work.
Where she once again spent her day making fairy tales come true for everyone except herself.
Charlotte’s Grove, the Lyndon family’s centuries-old home, perched on a rise of land northeast of town with spectacular views of the Shenandoah River. Built in the early 1700s, the Georgian mansion and the land surrounding it had always belonged to a member of the Lyndon family. On Sunday, Senator Mark Lyndon and his wife, Pam, the current occupants, held a family brunch to celebrate Andrew’s wedding.
The bride and groom were not in attendance, since they’d departed for a week-long honeymoon in Mallorca, but everyone except Amy, who was managing a big wedding at Eagle Hill Manor, was there. Matt had overslept because his night had been disturbed with erotic dreams featuring Courtney Wallace, so he was the last to arrive.
Although it was an overcast day, he found his kin on the back terrace enjoying a buffet of eggs, bacon, bagels, and smoked salmon. His younger brother, Jason, handed him a mimosa, and he dived into what was left of the food. The Lyndons were a hungry crowd when they gathered, and the smoked salmon had been demolished. He’d started filling his plate with eggs when Dad sneaked up behind him.
“You have a minute, son?” he asked in that stern-father voice that always sent a shiver of dread through Matt. Plus, he hated it every time Dad called him “son” like that because it almost always preceded one of Dad’s fatherly lectures, which were peppered with plenty of criticism and disapproval. So not on Matt’s list of things he wanted to do on his Sunday off.
But saying no wasn’t an option either, because in addition to being his dad, Charles Lyndon was now also his boss and the managing partner of the Virginia office of LL&K. Family members who worked at LL&K huddled during family get-togethers—a behavior that Matthew had always thought rather rude.
Apparently Dad expected him to behave exactly like his older cousins, David and Andrew, which was hardly new. Dad had been expecting him to behave like his older cousins for most of his life, and Matt had been falling short for just as long.
“Come on,” Dad said, ushering him across the patio to the table where David sat with August Kopp. Uh-oh, it was worse than Matt thought. Dad was going to lecture him in front of the firm’s senior partner.
Matt snagged a seat and greeted David before he turned toward August. “Is Brandon okay?”
“He was still asleep when I left him this morning. I’d have more sympathy for his feelings were it not for the fact that he behaved like such an idiot last fall.”
Matt was hardly surprised by August’s comments. Brandon and his father had an uneasy relationship. In fact, Matt and Brandon had spent a lot of time talking about their respective fathers during their trip to Bermuda last year—the trip that was supposed to have been Brandon’s honeymoon.
“Well, don’t be too hard on him,” Matt said. “I don’t think he expected Laurie to find someone else.”
Dad scowled. “He should have expected it. And he should have stayed far away from Laurie yesterday.”
“Laurie’s better off with Andrew,” August said. “But we’re not here to talk about Brandon.”
Holy crap. August Kopp’s tone suggested that the partners of LL&K had been sitting at that table waiting for him to arrive. What had he done? He could think of so many possible missteps over the last week, but he swallowed down his discomfort and asked, “What exactly are we here to discuss?”
“The Dogwood Estates Tenants Association,” David said.
“What about it?” He cast his gaze from David to Dad and then finally to Mr. Kopp.
David leaned forward with an intense gaze. “Arwen gave me a copy of her memo, the one she wrote at your suggestion.”
Was there an accusation in his tone or his words? Matt couldn’t tell.
“Look, all I asked her to do was to find out if the county had forgiven the fines once GB Ventures bought the apartment complex. I didn’t expect her to come back with a memo suggesting something deeper and more nefarious.”
“But why did you ask her to do the research in the first place?” Dad asked.
He clamped his back teeth together for a moment before he forced himself to relax. It was always this way, being called to account for decisions he’d made. “I was curious,” he finally said.
“Curious?” Dad said in an incredulous tone.
“Okay, I had this crazy-assed idea that we could go after the county for violating property rights.”
“What?” Dad’s eyebrows reached up toward his hairline. “Since when are
