A Will and a Wedding

This was exactly like coming home, he thought, staring at the beauty around him. And it was nothing like the house he’d grown up in. This house was made for laughing children, a family, love. Suddenly, Jefferson wished he might raise his son here. When he had one, he reminded himself.

Obviously, Aunt Judith had wanted him to have that experience. But at what a price-married to someone he didn’t even know!

Voices from the garden area penetrated his musings and he got up to investigate. Down past the patio, a shortcut through the maze and Jefferson was almost across the lawns when he identified the happy laughing shouts of children.

“Chicken! I let you roll me.”

“No, you didn’t. I made you.”

“Ow! David! He pulled my braid.”

What were they doing here, he wondered? The estate was fenced but there were no nearby neighbours with children. At least none that he could recall. From the sounds quite a few people were present now. And they were having a riot on his aunt’s property.

“Can’t catch me.”

When he finally rounded what Judith had called the summerhouse, Jefferson Haddon III stopped dead in his tracks. There were at least ten of them, he decided. The oldest was no more than fifteen or sixteen. They were carrying the cornstalks from the side of the garden to the center, forming a huge cornstalk teepee while one person stood at the edge, arms outstretched to the sky.

“Autumn leeeves begin to faaall.”

At least the shrill voice had good volume, he decided, wincing at the wobbling pitch.

They all had jeans on, from the toddler holding another child’s hand, to the eldest who seemed intent on adding a few more stalks to the already monstrous heap. All except for one boy, the tallest of the group. He wore tight black pants that looked painted on, and a red checked shirt that hung way down his lean body.

Startled, Jefferson watched as the skinny one lit the teepee. In seconds there was a huge crackling bonfire in the center of his great aunt’s garden, and a pack of kids were dancing round and round, laughing happily.

“Ring around the rosy!”

Disgust and anger coursed through his veins as Jefferson watched the scene unfold They had no right to intrude, he fumed. No right at all. This was private property. For some reason the Bennets were not here, so these children were trespassing. They certainly didn’t have permission to light a fire.

Breaking into a run, Jefferson jogged across the lawn and through the black tilled soil of the garden to grab what he thought was the ringleader by his jacket.

“Exactly what do you think you’re doing?” he demanded through clenched teeth and then sucked in a lungful of air as shimmering green eyes glittered out from a tousled mop of black hair.

“Having a wiener roast, Mr. Haddon. Want to join us?”

Cassie Newton stood grinning up at him as the children ran circles around them happily. She looked like a child herself in the bulky old coat and decrepit jeans. Her face was smudged with dirt and her blunt fingernails were filthy.

“Who are all these children?” he asked, ignoring the grin. “And what are they doing here?”

“They’re mine,” Cassie told him proudly. “And I already told you. We are going to roast wieners.” Her voice dropped to a whisper as she hissed a warning up at him, green eyes flashing. “For the short time they have left here, this is their home and their party. And you will not spoil it, do you hear me?”

Sensing the tension surrounding them, most of the children had stopped their wild play and stood staring at the two adults facing each other.

Jefferson watched as the tall, skinny boy sporting the tight pants moved forward to stand protectively next to Cas sie. He topped her by a good ten inches and it was clear from his stance that he would take on anyone who challenged her.

Jefferson was flabbergasted.

“All of these children are yours?” His voice squeaked with surprise and he heard one of the kids snicker. He strove for control. His eyes moved over her assessingly. “How old are you, anyway?”

But she ignored him.

“David,” she addressed the young soldier at her side. “Would you please tell Mrs. Bennet that we’re ready. Then you could help her carry out the hot dogs and the hot chocolate.”

A sweet smile accompanied her words and Jefferson was surprised to see the sour-faced lad grin back good-naturedly before loping off to do her bidding.

She directed the rest of the children to arranging a picnic table that stood off under the trees, and finding wiener sticks. Satisfied that everyone was occupied, Cassie turned back to face him.

“I’m a foster mother,” she told him matter-of-factly. “The kids stay with me until the agency is able to find them families.” Her green eyes glimmered with mirth as she spied his Gucci shoes filling rapidly with rich black garden soil.

“You’re not really dressed for this,” she observed, eyeing his pure wool slacks, black vest and once pristine white shirt. “Perhaps you should wait inside until I am finished if you wish to speak to me.”

Jefferson seethed at the dismissing tone of this-this interloper. So she thought she could reject him so easily? He grabbed her arm as she turned away. His eyes opened wide as she turned on him like a fiery virago, ramrod stiff in the filthy garments.

“Mr. Haddon, you will let go of me. You will not create a scene to spoil our day. You will return to the house and wait there.”

Her voice was as crisp as a fresh fall apple and he found himself turning to obey her militarylike orders before he realized what he was doing and turned back.

“Just a minute here,” he protested, angry that she had him dancing to her tune. He pointed to the fire.

“You cannot let that thing rage away. What if it got out of control? The city has bylaws, you know.”

The urchin before him drew herself to her full height, which Jefferson figured was maybe a hair over five feet, before deigning to speak. When she did, her resentment was clear.

“I am in charge here, Mr. Haddon. If I need help I can call on Bennet. But I won’t.” Her hands clasped her hips and he couldn’t help but notice the way her hair tossed itself into silky disarray around her face. “And for your information, I have a permit to burn.”

Jefferson shook his head. He refused to be deterred. Someone had to protect Judith’s wonderful old estate.

“Bennet’s nowhere to be seen. Fat lot of help he’d be.”

She refused to answer him, her full lips pursed tightly. Instead, one grubby fist pointed toward the shed in the corner of the garden. Jefferson saw a man leaning against the side, watching them.

“We’ll manage, Mr. Haddon. You’d better go before you ruin those designer duds completely.”

Jefferson almost choked. The stately old butler Aunt Judith had insisted wear a black pinstripe suit coat and spotless white shirt stood clad in a red flannel shirt and tattered overalls with a filthy felt hat on his silver hair.

Jefferson whirled around to speak to Cassie but she ignored him as she dealt with one of the children’s requests. When the little girl had toddled away, he tried a more conciliatory approach.

“My name is Jefferson,” he told her softly, intrigued by a woman who would don such unsightly clothes to stand in the center of a dirty garden with a pack of homeless kids for a wiener roast in late autumn.

She whirled to face him, having obviously forgotten his presence.

“What?” Her voice was far away, lost in some never land.

“My name is Jefferson.” He told her again, more clearly this time.

That sent her big green eyes searching his for something. He didn’t know exactly what, but evidently she was satisfied. Moments later she moved forward to help Mrs. Bennet set out the food. He thought he heard her clear tones whisper softly through the crisp air.

“Goodbye, Jeff.”

As he watched her walk away with that energetic bounce to her step he was coming to recognize, Jefferson tossed the sound through his mind several times.

Jeff. Jeff, he said to himself. He’d never had a nickname before, not with his father’s strict adherence to family traditions. At boarding school he’d always been Jefferson or Jefferson William.

Jeff.

He liked it. A smile flickered across his sober face. He had never been to a wiener roast, either. Perhaps it was time he broadened his horizons. So that he could teach Bobby, he told himself.

He strode back to Judith’s house with anticipation as his companion. The boy, David, was just coming out and looked suspiciously at him before moving aside at the door. He avoided Jeffs eyes, striding quickly past, obviously eager to join the group in the garden.

“David,” Jefferson called after him. The boy stopped, unsure. Finally he turned around, angling a questioning black eyebrow up at the older man.

“What?” His voice was sullen.

“I need to change clothes. Do you know where there are some old things I can borrow?” Jeff ignored his petulant expression.

They stood facing each other for long moments, searching brown eyes scrutinizing him steadily, before David nodded. Moving into the house, he stopped to let Jeff remove his dirty shoes.

“Mrs. Bennet will skin you ‘live if you track that dirt through the house,” he ordered, his tone smugly superior.

As they marched the length of the upstairs hallway, Jeff noticed that every room seemed to be occupied. It was odd. He’d been here hundreds of times before and no one had ever occupied the second floor.

Other than Judith.

They finally stopped at the linen closet at the far end of the hall. The boy tugged out a cardboard box and began pulling things out.

“Here, you can wear these,” the kid offered, measuring Jefferson’s body mentally before choosing his attire.

Jefferson winced at the ragged denim shirt and much patched jeans that were proffered from a box that had undoubtedly come from the Goodwill center. There was very little to commend the shabby articles except that they would save his own clothes from stains the black garden soil would inflict.

“You can change in my room if you want,” David suggested hesitantly.

“Thank you very much.” Jefferson kept his tone properly appreciative, considering this was half his house. David stood staring out the window while he slipped out of his pants and into the rags.

“Why do you have your own room?” Jefferson asked curiously, having already noticed two beds in each of the other bedrooms.

The boy’s head swung round, his grin wide.

“Cassie says a guy who’s sixteen should have some privacy. So I get to have my own room. I never had that before.” His serious brown eyes stared at Jefferson. “In most of the foster places we don’t have half the fun we have here.” His solemn face brightened.

“Cassie says this is a fun stop on the highway of life. While we’re here we get to do lots of neat things. Like the bonfire.” His eager eyes inspected Jefferson from head to stockinged feet. “There’s some old boots in the back porch,” he said softly. His dark head tipped to one side, anxiously waiting.

“Are you just about ready? They’re gonna be cooking the hot dogs soon an’ I’m starved.”

Jefferson nodded and they went down the stairs together. Well, sort of together. The boy bounded down happily in front, eager to rejoin the fray.

Jefferson slipped on the boots slowly, mulling over the child’s explanation. If he understood correctly, this boy was in limbo. Waiting. And while he was here, that woman, Cassie Newton, made the time seem like a holiday. It was a curious occupation; one he didn’t understand. What did she get out of it?

They walked toward the others, David half running until he stopped suddenly. Wheeling around, he asked, “Are you going to live here, too?”

Jefferson paused, head tilted, wondering how to answer.

“I’m not sure yet,” he hedged finally. “Why?”

“Just wondering what we’re s’posed to call you,” David mumbled, turning away.

Jefferson reached out impulsively, pulling at the boy’s sleeve.

“My name is Jeff.” The rest died away as the teenager bounded toward the others, yelling as he went.

“This is my friend Jeff,” he bellowed to the assembled throng. That settled, he got to the matters at hand. “I’m having four hot dogs.”

They crowded around Cassie eagerly as she handed out wieners and sticks to the younger ones first, then the older children. To his credit, David waited until the last for his portion, Jeff noticed. He took his own place behind the patient boy and only belatedly wondered if there would be enough of everything for the adults to share in the feast.

He would have backed away then, but Cassie thrust a stick and a wiener at him.

“Slumming, Jeff?” she asked, one eyebrow quirked upward expressively. There it was again, he mused, that shortened form of his name. To his amazement, he found that he enjoyed hearing it on her lips. He was even starting to think of himself as Jeff, he decided.

He ignored the hint of sarcasm and threaded the wiener on the stick crossways. It didn’t look very secure and he wondered how long it would stay on.

Evidently, Cassie Newton was mentally posing the same question for she reluctantly took the items from his clumsy hands and patiently demonstrated the fine art of roasting hot dogs.

“You have to do it like this,” she instructed, pushing the meat on lengthwise. “Otherwise it will fall off when it begins to cook.”

Her eyes took in his curious outfit then, widening in surprise as she focused on the sizable tear above his left knee. She forwent the obvious comment and, with a grin, turned to skewer a hotdog for herself before moving toward the fire.

Jeff followed her, wishing he’d had this experience before. Feeling totally inept and out of place, he watched carefully, noticing the way she turned and twisted the stick to get each part of the meat cooked. He tried to follow suit but after several minutes, Cassie’s wiener looked golden brown and plumply delicious while his was shriveled and covered with black spots. Even the youngest child in the group had done better than he.

“Good for you, Missy. That looks great!” She praised the littlest imp with a glowing smile.

Jeff decided he liked the way her face lit up when one of the children teased her. A softening washed over her clear skin as she spoke to each. She didn’t talk down to them, he noted, and she didn’t boss. Cassie Newton treated each child as an adult person, entitled to her full attention. And as she listened to their little stories and jokes, Jefferson sensed her pleasure in them.

“We’re very happy to have you here, sir.” It was Bennet, grinning like a Cheshire cat as he bit into his own food. “Miss Judith used to say that sweet dill relish was what made the difference between a really good hot dog and a great one.”

Jeff smiled while his brain screeched to a halt. Aunt Judith had done this? Joined in a wiener roast in the garden? Stiff and stern Aunt Judith who wouldn’t tolerate a speck of dirt under seven-year-old fingernails?

He could hardly imagine such a thing. His curious eyes moved over the assembled throng.

It was like watching a huge family, he mused. Something like Norman Rockwell would have painted and totally unreal. He munched on the liberally ketchuped, but still charred, hot dog and thought about the curiously vibrant woman laughing down at seven wildly active children.

That Cassie managed all this with children who weren’t her own was wonder enough. But when you considered that they were children who were here for a short duration only, the bond she managed to create was amazing.

He wondered how she had achieved such a rapport with them even as a tinge of jealousy wove through his mind. He wanted, no, he dreamed, of having such a relationship with his own children.

Just then the real-life Norman Rockwell portrait happened right before his eyes. A little boy, no more than five, tucked his hand into Cassie’s and proceeded to tug her behind him to the lush green grass beyond the garden. On one end, it was covered with a pile of red and gold leaves in various stages of drying. As Jeff watched, they took turns tossing handfuls of the vibrantly colored foliage over each other, giggling merrily as the leaves stuck to their hair and their clothes. The picture stayed in his mind, clear and bright long after the game ended.

A whole new plan began to form in his mind.

One that involved the son he had longed for.

One that involved the petite dark-haired woman, industriously swiping at the mustard stain on the mouth of one of her charges.

One that involved Judith’s extensive estate and the money she’d wanted him to have.

Jefferson William Haddon III sipped his hot chocolate and thought about that idea.

A lot.

Yes, he decided at last. It might just be workable. As long as he kept his mind focused on the long term plan: A business that stretched around the globe and a son to leave it to.

Chapter Two

“Oh, Lord,” she prayed, “why me and why now?” Cassie wasn’t nearly as nonchalant about the sudden appearance of Jeff Haddon as she would have liked him to believe. In fact, the sight of those broad muscular shoulders and lean, tapered legs had quickened her heart rate substantially in the lawyer’s office. And again when he appeared in the garden. But he need not know that.

Neither did he need to know the way her heart sped up when she looked into those rich chocolate eyes. Maybe it was because he sometimes looked like a lost little boy himself.

She laughed at the thought. Boy, indeed.

Don’t be a fool, she scolded herself. Jefferson Haddon certainly doesn’t require your mothering skills.

So she continued her ministrations with the children, hoping they would enjoy the wonderful fall weather while it lasted. And if ever there was a place for them to run and yell, free of the constant strictures of their everyday life, it was on the grounds of Judith McNaughton’s estate. The place was like a bit of heaven God had sent specially for their use. It seemed that now He was changing the rules.

When the afternoon sun lost its warmth, she scooted them all inside.

“Come on, guys, let’s go in and watch that new video Mrs. Bennet rented.” They trooped into the TV room with barely a complaint and settled down while she took the opportunity to relax for a moment in the sunroom.

Cassie glanced out the window longingly, thinking wistfully of what she would lose when she moved out in two months. Not that she wanted to; the place was made for hoards of children and Judith had been the best surrogate grandmother Cassie could have ever asked for.

She remembered the day she had filled out the first forms to become a foster mother. It seemed like yesterday and yet there had been a variety of children since then. And nothing had ever been as wonderful as Judith’s invitation to stay at Oak Bluff. That will had come as a surprise. Fondly, Cassie recalled the old lady’s words about the children.

“They need stability and order, my dear,” she had said. “And I think you are the one to give it to them.”

Cassie’s lips tightened as she remembered Judith’s comments on her nephew.

“He’s a stubborn one, is Jefferson, but underneath he’s a good lad. Honest and kind. Maybe a bit reserved.”

Judith had been fond of rambling on about her family and Cassie hadn’t paid as much attention as she should have.

Obviously.

She was still amazed that the ‘boy’ Judith had talked about was over thirty years old, tall, dark and handsome and from one of the city’s oldest families.

That he was here now seemed unbelievable. After all, he had not made an effort to see the old woman during the last few months of her life.

“It’s a wonderful old house, isn’t it?”

Cassie whirled around to find the object of her thoughts standing languidly behind her. His deep voice sounded friendly, without the arrogant tones she had heard at the lawyer’s. She decided to give him the benefit of her many doubts and listened as he continued speaking.

“I used to come here quite a lot as a child. Aunt Judith had a way of making me feel better at Oak Bluff when things at home weren’t going very well.”

She cocked her dark curly head to one side, appraising him with quizzical jade eyes.

“You haven’t been around for quite a while,” she accused. “I’ve been living here for six months and in all that time Judith never saw you once.”

Jeff shook his dark head. “No, she didn’t.”

He refused to justify himself to her, Cassie noted. He might as well have told her to mind her own business. Still, she had needed to ask.

“Where will you live when they sell the house?” she asked curiously. The way he kept watching her made Cassie nervous.

“The same place I’ve been living for years,” he commented sarcastically. Jeff’s dark eyes stared down at her unperturbed.

Cassie bristled at the condescending note that filled his low voice. Her temper was one of the things she constantly tried to rein in, but inevitably she forgot all about control and let loose when she should have kept cool. This was one of those times.

“Look, Mr. Haddon,” the emphasis was unmistakable. “Perhaps I don’t have the obvious resources you have and your aunt had, but I am not some subhuman hussy trying to swindle you. I am interested in what happens to this house because it involves my family and my employment. When I move, I will lose these children because I don’t have the housing resources to meet government standards. Pardon me if I seem concerned!”

She would have angrily spun out of the room, but Jefferson Haddon grasped her arm and forcibly tugged her back When she looked up, his rugged face was stretched in a self-mocking grin. His long fingers plucked the ragged denim away from his lean form.

“I’m sorry,” he proffered humbly. “I’m dressed like a bum and now I’m acting like one. Can we at least try to be friends?” When she didn’t answer, he pressed her hand. “For Aunt Judith’s sake? I’m sure she thought a lot of you to ask you to live here.”

Cassie eyed him suspiciously through her narrowed eyes. Regardless of what attire Jefferson Haddon III donned, she doubted if anyone would ever question his status as the lord of the manor. And that mildly beseeching tone didn’t suit him at all.

Expertly cut black hair lay close against his well-shaped head, the back just grazing the collar of his shirt. Broad forehead, long aristocratic nose and a wide mouth seemed chiseled into classically perfect proportions which screamed blueblood.

Jeff Haddon had the lanky, whipcord-strong type of body Cassie had always assumed belonged to cowboys, not playboys. His shoulders looked muscular and wide beneath the torn flannel, his hips narrow with long, long legs. He looked what he was, a rich business tycoon dressed in let’spretend-we’re-slumming clothes.

Right now his dark eyes beseeched her to understand. Grudgingly she accepted his apology even as she tugged her smaller hand from his. She hated having to tip her head so far back just to look at him and vowed to buy some four-inch heels to wear when he was around.

“I don’t think friendship is exactly what your aunt had in mind when she made up that will,” Cassie quipped, curious about the red stain that covered his pronounced cheekbones.

“Then I guess we’ll just have to pretend,” he retorted.

“Fine. Truce.” Cassie turned to leave.

“Where are you going?” His voice was an exact replica of two-year-old Mark’s and Cassie smiled at the sound of petulance.

“I thought perhaps you would prefer to be alone. This house is big enough to get lost in and failing that, I can go help in the kitchen,” she replied, moving toward the door.

His rumbly voice stopped her.

“Why don’t you have coffee with me instead?” he asked, holding out a slim hand toward the huge armchair that had always been Cassie’s favorite. “Mrs. Bennet just brought a fresh pot in,” he cajoled.