The Soon-To-Be-Disinherited Wife

Some people would never buy the farm, but Caroline was always someone who couldn’t quite close the gate to depression.

He scraped a hand through his hair and suddenly halted outside 201. He felt as if he’d been running hell-bent for leather for hours, which was fine but not how he wanted his sister to see him. He forced himself to stand still for a few minutes, pull it all together, concentrate on pulling off an image of calm strength.

A nurse buzzed past him. Then two aides. He took a step toward the door, when suddenly a woman walked out of Caroline’s room. She almost ran straight into him—would have if he hadn’t instinctively reached out to steady her.

Her head shot up. A mane of silky dark hair fell to shoulder length, framing a cameo face—elegant bones, huge eyes bluer than violet, a pale mouth with the lipstick worn off.

Her striking looks would have ransomed his attention even if he didn’t know her…but he did.

Her name didn’t pop into his head in that second, probably because, hell, his mind was gone after these past stress-packed hours. Yet stress or no stress, he immediately remembered her eyes. He remembered kissing her. He remembered dancing in the grass at midnight, remembered laughing…the way he never seemed to laugh with other people, not then or now. But she was different. She’d made him laugh. Made him fall harder in love than a crash.

Of course, that was aeons ago.

A lifetime and more.

“Garrett,” she said gently. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Emma.” He’d known her name all along. It was just that the memories had rushed into his head faster than the prosaic facts. “You’ve been with my sister?”

“Yes. It’s past visiting hours, but…” She hesitated. “I think no one wants to leave her alone. Your parents were here until about a half hour ago. In fact, I just stayed in the hall—but I heard her talking, realized she was upset. So when I saw them leave, I went in. I didn’t know what else to do. Except try to be there for her. She’s fallen asleep now.” Again she hesitated. A wisp of a smile softened her face. “It’s good to see you.”

“Not under these circumstances.”

“No. In fact, I remember your saying you’d never come back to Eastwick if you could help it.”

He remembered that suddenly, all too well. It was why he’d broken it off with her all those years ago—because he’d rather give up anything, everything, than live in this damn town. But that was how he’d felt at twenty-one, an age when everything was an ultimatum. An age when you assumed you didn’t need anyone ever. An age when it was so amazingly easy to be self-righteous.

Now he looked at Emma and thought she’d grown into her looks. She used to be lovely, but she’d gone far beyond lovely now. She was wearing blue pants, a dark cotton sweater. Dressed comfortably for a hospital visit, nothing fancy, but her choice of clothes showed off her long, lean body. There was pride in her posture, in her eyes. A poise she’d never had as a girl.

A loneliness.

She looked as if she wanted to say something else, but then shook her head. “You’ll want to go in to see her. And I’m just leaving—”

“Emma, if you wouldn’t mind…”

She cocked her head.

“I do want to see her. Right now. But if she’s fallen asleep, could you wait just a couple minutes? I’d appreciate hearing your impression of what the situation is—”

“Her doctor can tell you the facts. I really don’t know—”

“I’ll get all that. But I’d like the opinion of a friend. That is, if you can spare the time? I realize it’s already late.”

“Of course I can spare the time,” she said.

Again she offered him a smile. A smile like a gift—that’s how he used to think of smiles and laughter from her. She’d given him so much, so freely from the heart. Every moment with her had been like discovering something he’d never known he’d missed.

Just seeing her face brought that feeling back.

But then, of course, he strode in to see his sister.

Two

Emma paced the hallway outside Room 201, glancing at her watch every few minutes, thinking that she shouldn’t stay. It wasn’t as if she were direct family, not to Garrett or Caroline. She had no real business being here. She was just a friend. And she couldn’t help feeling awkward because of her history with Garrett.

But then he stumbled out of Caroline’s room, and her breath caught just looking at him.

He wasn’t that brash, sexy boy she remembered, the one whose kisses made her knees knock, made her pulse zoom, made her feel like a woman for the first time. But damned if the look of him didn’t send a crazy rush straight to her hormones.

He’d looked like Keanu Reeves as a boy. He was still tall and lean, still had the dark hair and magnetic eyes. Wearing an Italian suit and linen shirt, he radiated sophistication—even as rumpled and exhausted as he obviously was. Even whipped, though, she saw the power in his face, in his eyes.

Their history suddenly pinched her heart. He’d fiercely wanted to get out of Eastwick back then—primarily to escape his overbearing, controlling parents, a problem she could positively relate to.

She’d wanted to matter more to him, to factor more in his decisions. And hadn’t. It wasn’t as simple as escaping problems for Garrett. He used to wear a T-shirt that said It’s More Fun To Play In The Deep End. And that was him. He’d never wanted an easy life, didn’t expect one. He wanted to carve his own niche, to take all the risks, to make a mark with his own name on it.

Emma knew from gossip that he’d gone after his goals with both resolve and ambition—and never looked back. Even so, he didn’t look so much like a high roller in the investment world now. Closer up, she could see the pinched lines around his mouth, the anxiety and worry in his expression.

“Thanks for waiting,” he said.

She matched his subdued tone. “I’m guessing Caroline’s still asleep?”

“She’s out for the count. I didn’t want to leave her…but there doesn’t seem any point in sitting there when she’s so deeply under. And I have to believe she needs the rest.”

Emma nodded in agreement. “I’m guessing you rushed out of New York this afternoon? Have you had a chance to get any dinner?”

He shook his head. “But I don’t want to go far. If you don’t mind, I just want to talk to you for a couple minutes.”

“Sure. The hospital cafeteria is pitiful, but we should be able to scare up a sandwich or something reasonably edible.” She realized he didn’t want to be farther than running distance from his sister, but it wasn’t that hard to persuade him into a quick snack.

The food choices in the cafeteria were as ghastly as she’d promised. The best he could choose was a dry turkey sandwich on dry whole wheat, stale chips, a cup of pitch-black coffee. But Emma coaxed him to carry it outside, away from the sterile hospital smells and sights. Just beyond the side doors was a mini landscaped garden with cement benches in the moonlight.

“Feels good,” he admitted, taking one of the benches. Both of them inhaled the fresh air. A security light beamed enough reflection so they weren’t sitting in darkness yet felt the freedom of the shadows. Emma could almost see him relax—or try to.

“I keep thinking this is my fault,” he confessed. “Caroline called me twice this week. I was busier than hell, got the messages, just planned to call her back when I had time. She never said it was important or critical, but when the hospital called, my heart just seemed to leap in my throat.” He sucked in a breath, turned to look at her. “Would you tell me what you know?”

Emma only wished it were more. “I see her quite often—in town or at different functions. We’re not as close as sisters, but I’ve thought of her as a friend for years, Garrett. I’d have hoped she knew she could turn to me. But the only recent trouble I knew she had was with Griff, and that was ages ago.”

He nodded, unwrapped the sandwich, sighed at the look of it and then crunched down. “That was my impression, too. That the marriage had healed up. Caroline had told me more than once that they were happier than they’d ever been.”

“That’s how it looked to everyone. They’ve been like newlyweds in public. I’m assuming someone told you that he’s gone right now. A three- or four-week trip to China, I think someone said. But Caroline never said anything about any trouble since they reconciled.”

“Griff always traveled. I thought that was one of the problems between them originally—all his time away from her, overseas.” Garrett gulped down another dry bite of sandwich. “I don’t think he’s been gone like this in a while, though. And it’s really rare that he couldn’t be reached by phone.”

“I’m sure he’ll get here as fast as he can.”

“Right now the only question that matters is why’d she do this? What could possibly have been so wrong that she’d consider taking her own life?” Garrett bunched up his paper plate and napkin. “If somebody hurt her, I’ll find out. Believe me. But right now I don’t have the first clue what could have been so bad that she felt driven to do this.”

It wasn’t a pretty picture, Garrett confronting someone who’d hurt his sister. Emma thought his lean build, elegant suit and urban appearance were misleading. If she were stuck in an alley with a muscle-bound guy versus Garrett, she’d take Garrett anytime. His backbone had always been steel, his character too stubborn to ever back down—even when he should.

“She hasn’t been confiding in anyone,” Emma said. “We’ve all asked each other. Everyone wants to help and feels badly. But maybe she’ll start talking now that you’re home.” She hesitated. “I don’t want to say anything negative about your parents, but it’s been pretty obvious that she hasn’t wanted to see them or say anything to them.”

“No surprise there.”

He didn’t say more on that subject, but he didn’t have to. Emma knew his parents. His Keatings were similar to her Dearborns. Both families had serious money. Both families push-pulled their offspring to play the dynasty game by their rules.

Garrett had never been sucked in. Not the way Emma knew she had. But she’d stayed single, fought all her parents’ efforts to marry her off, as a way of drawing the line on their control. They’d ardently wanted her to marry into a “good family,” have offspring to carry on the Dearborn legacy.

Sometimes Emma felt as if Eastwick had a bit in common with medieval castle life. The wealthy crowd she’d grown up with had believed that sex was a commodity, that a “smart” woman made a good match, using any and all tools she had. The women in her pack knew early on that a woman was expected to sexually please a man. It was part of the job—a woman’s job to attract and keep the alpha guys in the pack.

Maybe that was the real world. That’s what people kept telling her. So many people seemed to think that women prettied up relationships by calling them “love,” when reality was survival, and survival for a woman meant nailing the best provider. Sex was a powerful tool for a woman to use to catch the best guy. Friends thought of Emma as naive for believing otherwise. She never argued with them. She just didn’t want to live that way. Maybe there was no fairy tale, but she preferred to live alone than invite a sexual relationship where her performance came with a grade attached.

“What?” Garrett asked her. “From the expression on your face, something’s on your mind.”

She shook her head with a wry smile. Heaven knew why her mind had curved down that road, except that she’d wanted to give Garrett a chance to finish his mini meal in peace. And being with him had provoked memories of that wild, crazy excitement she’d felt with him—nothing to do with grading cards or skills or sex being a commodity. She’d just fiercely wanted him with all her young seventeen-year-old body. But that was a goofy thought path, especially for this moment, when he had so many serious things on his mind. “Where are you staying while you’re home?” she asked him.

“With the parents.” He sighed. “To be honest, staying there’s my last choice in the universe. But at least to start with, I need to get a better picture of what’s going on with my sister. They may not be close to Caroline emotionally, but I’m still hoping they have some clue.”

“It just won’t be restful staying with them?”

“To say the least.” He turned, and it was as if he temporarily forgot all his family worries. Not for long but just for that moment, he looked at her face framed in moonlight, her quiet smile. And suddenly there just seemed the two of them alone in their own private universe. “I’m glad I ran into you.”

So blunt. So like him. “Likewise. It’s good to see you again. Not under these circumstances, but—”

“I’ve thought of you. So many times.” He never dropped his eyes. “I know I hurt you, Emma.”

“Yup. You did. But there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then. We were both young.”

“I cared. In fact, I loved you.” Again his gaze seemed to sweep her face, her hair, her mouth. All of her. “Don’t think I didn’t. It was never that I wanted to leave you, wanted to hurt you. I was just frustrated and angry at the life I felt forced into here, always at war with my father. I couldn’t stay here.”

“I understood then and now, Garrett. The hurt’s long healed, honestly.” She smiled. “To tell you the truth, I think of you, too. Once the hurt healed…they were just good memories. Nothing like that first feeling of being love, is there? It’s the kind of memory you can take out on a rainy day and just…enjoy.”

“Trust a woman to soften it up. What I remember was a sexual high so damned painful I’m positive I came close to dying from it. All those Friday nights we took a blanket to Silver Point…Remember that? I’d go home and spend the rest of the night in a cold shower.”

She laughed. “Yeah, right.”

He was smiling, yet his eyebrows suddenly lifted in a curious expression. “You don’t believe me?”

“I believe you’re full of the devil, no different than you always were.” She was a long way from the shy teenager who blushed when a guy tried a little flirting. But somehow the look in Garrett’s eyes—the electric energy of being with him again—was putting a hot sizzle in her pulse. She was too physically aware of him for comfort. Quickly, competently, she steered him away from personal topics.

It worked. In fact, it more than worked. As the minutes passed, she felt relieved they’d found a way to talk naturally together again. He obviously needed and wanted to get back to his sister, but these few moments with some fresh air and a little food had eased the taut strain in his expression. He’d so clearly needed to climb off the anxiety train for a bit. So she told him about the current scandal in town—Bunny Baldwin’s death, the infamous missing diaries, everyone worrying about what secrets Bunny had known, Jack Cartright being blackmailed and his marrying Lily and how much happiness had come out of that horrible mess in the long run….

She didn’t talk long, just enough to fill him in on the town’s personalities. The instant he started to look restless, she stood up, and then swiftly so did he.

“I know,” she said without his having to speak up. “You’re going back to Caroline. And I need to head home and get some sleep.”

“I do need to get back upstairs. But for all this catching up, I still didn’t take the chance to ask anything about you.” Quick as a sliver, he asked, “So—you aren’t still on the loose, are you? You in a good marriage?”

“I’m engaged.” The instant the words came out of her mouth, she felt a flush of guilt because, damn, she hadn’t thought of Reed in hours now. Not that she’d done anything wrong. She hadn’t touched Garrett or kissed him or done anything suggestive in any way.

Yet the instant she said engaged, his expression immediately changed. It wasn’t as if he stopped smiling at her, but…the lights went off. He quickly closed a door on possibilities that, until that instant, she hadn’t realized was open.

Yet on her drive back to the art gallery, alone in the dark, she admitted fibbing to herself.

She might not have touched Garrett, but she’d thought about it.

She might not have taken his personal comments seriously, but her heartbeat had been galloping like a young girl’s.

She might not have done anything wrong, but her disloyalty to Reed was still real. And wrong.

Most of the time she lived at her parents’ house, where she had a private suite of rooms on the second floor. Often enough, though, she worked late at the gallery and then just stayed in town. Tonight it was already too late to drive home, so she let herself in the back door of Color and slipped off her shoes.

Several years before, she’d converted a small anteroom off the first floor into a home away from home. She kept books, cosmetics, several changes of clothes there, but the room had slowly been filling up with the oddest assortment of treasures. A two-centuries-old Chinese desk, candles wrapped in a necklace of amethysts, a white fur rug by the bed, a narrow Louis XIV mirror…She shook her head at the wild assortment often enough. They were things she loved, but they certainly didn’t represent any standard decorating style. The silliest of all was a framed sign—Shall We Dance in the Kitchen?—that meant nothing at all, except that sometimes she wished she were that whimsical and romantic. Or that she could be.

Plunking down on the bed, she kicked off her shoes and phoned her parents to let them know she’d be staying in town, then got ready for bed and switched off the light. She was beat, yet somehow she lay there for hours, staring at the film of white curtains whispering in the window. Garrett refused to leave her mind.

It made no sense. He was the wrong man. Reed was the right man, the man she was supposed to be marrying. So why couldn’t she stop Garrett from haunting every corner of her thoughts?

In the morning, she promised herself, she’d call Reed. First thing. And until then, she mentally slapped herself upside the head and determined to squash her shameful attitude.

At least she tried to.

Garrett hadn’t meant to doze off, but he must have. Because when he opened his scratchy eyes, his neck and knees were cramped from sitting in the straight-back chair. The wall clock claimed more than an hour had passed…and his sister’s eyes were open.

He lurched out of the chair, exhaustion forgotten, as he picked up Caroline’s hand. He hated hospitals. Never knew what to say or do. But one look at his sister—her face as pale as the sheets, and the sad look in her eyes scaring him—and he wanted to shoot someone.

“Garrett.” She said his name as if trying to talk through a mouthful of fuzz. Still, her frail voice managed to communicate relief and love at seeing him.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call you back. Beyond sorry,” he said fiercely. “I don’t know why you did this, sis, and I don’t care. I’ll help you make it right.”

She tried to shake her head. The effort seemed to exhaust her. “You can’t. But…glad you came.” She licked dry lips. “Love you.”

“Love you, too. I want you to rest. We don’t have to talk about anything until you’re ready. I just want you to know that I’m here. I’ll be here. And I won’t let anyone pressure you about anything, I swear—”

“Garrett…” Her fingers closed weakly around his wrist. “I know you want to help me. But you can’t fix this. No one can. I did something…terrible.”

She fell asleep before he could ask anything else, before she could try saying anything else. Garrett wasn’t used to anything shaking him, but the defeat and fear in his sister’s voice rattled him hard. He sat there, worrying up a storm, until a nurse came in and shooed him out.

He’d have battled the nurse—and won—if he thought there was anything further to gain from staying with Caroline. But right then it was obvious she needed rest more than anything. And if he wanted a chance to get to the bottom of his sister’s mess, he needed to get some rest himself.

The Keating estate was a short five miles from town, a two-story brick house set on a hillside, with a curved deck and a sculpted sloping lawn. It loomed in the moonlight like a gothic castle. He used his old house key, let himself in the kitchen entrance and immediately stepped out of his shoes, not wanting to wake his parents or any of the household staff.

It struck his ironic sense of humor that he used to tiptoe just like this when he was a teenager sneaking late into the house. One step into the living room and his big toe crashed into a chair leg. That was a déjà vu, too.

Moonlight flooded in the windows, so that once his eyes adjusted he realized his mother had redecorated again. The decor this time seemed to be some French period. Lots of gilt and tassels. Lots of mean furniture legs. Very elegant, if you went for that sort of thing. Garrett didn’t, and his toe was stinging like a banshee.

“Garrett!” His father switched on the light from the paneled doors at the stairway.

“Dad.” He offered the hug, knowing his father wouldn’t think to. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t.” Merritt wore pajamas, but his iron-gray hair was brushed, his eyes tired but alert. “Your mother and I are both up. Waiting for you. Hoping you’d gotten something out of Caroline that we didn’t.”

Upstairs, his parents had a mini living room off their sleeping quarters. Whiskey was poured, neat. His mother pecked his cheek, then curled on the couch in the window seat by the bay windows. “I hope you talked to her,” Barbara said immediately.

Garrett plunked down on an oversize footstool. He wasn’t about to replay his sister’s words. “I stayed for a few hours, but she was sleeping deeply.”

“I just don’t understand why she’d do this to us!”

Garrett didn’t expect either parent to ask how he was, how his life was going. The conversation was immediately about them. “Caroline didn’t do anything to you. She did it to herself.”

His mother rubbed her temples as if she were at the end of her rope. “That’s the point. That’s the exact point. Everyone will talk. Especially with all this scandal about Bunny’s death and those diaries…Now there’s just more fuel to the gossip fire. People could think we did something, when you know we gave that girl every advantage a daughter could possibly have. I swear, Caroline was selfish from the day she was born—”

“Mom. She’s troubled. She has to be in major despair over something or she’d never have done this.”

“Oh, pfft.” Barbara stood up, waving her glass. “She’s spoiled and wants attention. Like always. She doesn’t think of me or your father. Or our reputation in the community. She has everything she ever wanted in this life, but does she ever think of us?”

Okay. He’d been in his parents’ house all of ten minutes and already he wanted to smash a wall. That fast, he remembered why he’d left Eastwick and never looked back.

Later, though, when he lay in bed in the spare room, he recalled how hard it had been to leave his younger sister alone back then. And more than that, how painful it had been to leave Emma.

Right now it just didn’t matter if his parents drove him as crazy as they always had. He couldn’t leave his sister to the wolves. Until her husband came home from China—and until Garrett was certain she was going to be all right—he was staying here. Which meant he had to find a way to make his business work here for an indefinite period of time.

Before drifting off to sleep, Emma’s face whisked into his mind again. Her thick, glossy hair used to swish all the way down her back. Now she wore it shoulder length, but it was still like moonlight on black silk. So raven-dark, so rich, yet with light in every strand. Her soft mouth was as evocative as it had always been. So were those unforgettable eyes, so deep blue they were almost purple. Eyes a guy could get lost in.

God knows he had.

It still puzzled him that she hadn’t looked at him like an engaged woman.

And that her classy clothes showed off a successful, poised woman…yet that wasn’t how she’d looked at him either.