Chapter Seven
Michelle felt a shiver of anticipation. She took a deep breath. “What did you have in mind?” She didn’t trust that gleam in Josh’s eye.
He smiled and shrugged, his hands tightening slightly on her shoulders. “What would shock her the most, dancing barefoot in the entry, playing tag on the ground floor, or sliding down the banister?”
Michelle laughed, trying to ignore the twinge of disappointment. What had she expected him to say?
“All of the above! And I especially wished to slide down the banister when I was a child,” she confided.
“Can we go?” Penny asked.
Josh released his hold as the adults looked at her. “Go where?” Josh asked.
“Home.”
“In a bit. We want to see Michelle’s house.”
Penny’s eyes widened. “This is Michelle’s house?”
“It used to be, when I was a little girl like you,” Michelle said. “Want to see my bedroom?”
“You gots toys?”
“Have, not gots. There aren’t any toys left. We’re trying to sell the house and all the personal things have been taken away. But you can see my bed and where I used to play. And I’ll show you Auntie Abby’s and Auntie Caroline’s rooms, too.”
“’Kay.”
“Come on, then.” Michelle reached out her hand and was pleased when Penny trustingly placed hers in it. They climbed the long stairway to the spacious second story. Walking down the hall toward her old bedroom, Michelle was assailed with memories. Many happy ones of her and her sisters running between their rooms, telling secrets and laughing. But the echo of their grandmother’s stern voice sounded. She’d never evidenced any joy and seemed determined to squelch any signs in her granddaughters as well.
“This is it.” Michelle stepped inside and glanced around. It was a lovely room. The windows were tall with one set of French doors opening to the wrap around veranda on the second floor. But it looked cold and lonely.
Penny raced to the French doors and gazed outside, then walked around, touching things until she came to the canopy bed. Looking at the canopy, she smiled.
“Can I get up?” she asked.
Michelle crossed to lift the child into the bed. Penny promptly lay back and eyed the lacy confection above her head. “Like a little house,” she said.
“I liked that bed when I was little. When I was a teenager, I wished for the kind of bed where side curtains could drop down as well. That would have cocooned me from the rest of the family.”
Josh leaned against the door jamb, watching. Folding his arms across his chest, he studied the room. “I believe this room is larger than the first floor of my house.”
Michelle looked over at him in surprise. Then she frowned. “Don’t get any ideas, Josh. This is all show. And the price for it was steep. My grandmother was obsessed with the Talmadge family and Talmadge Hall. She mortgaged it to the hilt. If we ever get it sold, we’ll be lucky to get enough to pay all the debts. And you already know what she did to my parents—all in the name of family prestige.”
“Still must be a come-down to be living in my place now.”
“Not a bit. There’s warmth and a feeling of love in your home. You’re giving Penny something money can’t buy, a feeling of being wanted and cherished. I’d have given anything to have had that as a child.”
Flushing with the intensity of her words, Michelle turned and wandered to the windows. She’d been lucky with her sisters. They’d forged a bond that enabled them to endure the loss of their parents and the lack of warmth and love in the huge old family home. At least she’d had that.
“Where’s Auntie Abby’s room?” Penny asked, sliding down from the bed.
“This way.” Michelle started from the room, stopping when she reached the door. Josh was blocking the way. And from the look on his face, he wasn’t planning to move any time soon.
“Want to see Abby’s room, too?” she asked.
“I think I’d like to hear a bit more about Michelle’s childhood,” he said slowly.
“That was a long time ago.”
“Not so long ago. Was it so bad?”
“Maybe not so bad. Especially when we were little like Penny. I don’t think grandmother wanted to be bothered by little kids, so we had a series of nannies who watched us. We had a lot more freedom then than when we reached our teens. It was then that we started eating meals with grandmother and learning proper behavior. With the intent of attracting the right man and making an advantageous alliance,” she ended bitterly.
“Advantageous alliance?”
She smiled wryly. “Her term for marriage.”
“I want to see Auntie Abby’s room, Daddy,” Penny said, squeezing between him and the door frame.
“Let it go, Josh. It was a long time ago. I left as soon as I graduated from high school and only came back once in a while when I couldn’t get out of it.”
Josh moved out into the hall. “We can discuss this at another time.”
Leading the way across the hall to Abby’s old room, Michelle wondered why he kept on.
“Of course, your investigative instincts.”
“What investigative instincts?”
“That’s why you want to know more, it’s part of some ingrained work ethic because of your job.”
Josh didn’t respond as he watched Michelle show Abby’s room to his daughter.
Wanting to know more about her childhood had nothing to do with being an investigator, he realized. He plain wanted to know more about Michelle. What made her laugh or cry. What she’d loved as a child. How she had coped without a mother and father all the times when parents are so important. Had her grandmother gone to school events? Had she ever held them, rocked them. Maybe when young.
But from what she’d said, maybe no. He was grateful she had happy memories of the nannies who had cared for her.
He looked around the lavish old home. She’d grown up in luxury. It didn’t matter that her grandmother had gone into debt toward the
