The Housekeeper's Daughter

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.