don’t give me that sad-puppy look, you scamp,” she said, reaching out to touch his dark chestnut hair, so wild and messy, yet so like her own. It was hard to stay angry with Nick. Perhaps it was because she remembered all too well her own defiance at fifteen. Or maybe it was because she and Nick had no one but each other now. “I guess it’s okay,” she said, “assuming you’ve done all your home—”
But Nick didn’t dawdle an instant beyond the “okay.” He was already bolting across the front yard, leaping the small iron gate and racing toward the waiting car.
Melanie followed him out, and even after the roaring muffler faded to silence, she lingered on the porch. In a few seconds, she heard Ted’s footsteps. She tossed him an apologetic smile over her shoulder. “Sorry he was such a creep,” she said. “Must have been a spike in the hormone current.”
Ted chuckled. “If only they’d hurry up and invent a cure for adolescence.”
She sighed her heartfelt agreement, but she didn’t pursue the subject. Nick was gone, taking his raging hormones with him, and she didn’t feel like worrying anymore tonight. Instead she breathed deeply, savoring the peace of the sweet latespring evening. Crickets scratched, maples rustled, and in the distance a dog proclaimed himself lord of all he surveyed.
Wrapping her hand around the front post, Melanie gazed down the narrow street, studying the small, cinder-block houses. In spite of a few questionable neighbors, occasional raucous late-night fights in the house next door, she liked this cozy, unpretentious neighborhood, spotty grass, barking dogs and all. She’d take it over the sterile grandeur of Cartouche Court, Joshua’s personal monument to vulgarity, any day.
“Nick hates it here,” she said suddenly. Ted stirred, but he didn’t jump in with a response. She liked that about Ted. He was a good listener. “Every day when we get in the car to go home, he starts singing. Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s home to the ghetto we go.” Though technically it wasn’t funny, she had to smile, remembering. “It’s too awful. He does it in this simply spine-tingling falsetto.”
“Jeez. That brat really needs a boot in the rear, doesn’t he?”
She shook her head helplessly, still grinning. “I guess he just lived too long with my uncle. Cartouche Court can kind of distort your perspective.”
Ted hesitated a moment, and when he spoke, his tone was only half-teasing. “All right, out with it, Mel. Is this your way of telling me you’re going to go after the inheritance after all? What are you going to do—wed some pillar of the community just so you can restore Nick to the elegance of the Court?”
She tilted a glance up into his kind, intelligent face. Darn. He read her too well. She hadn’t even been sure herself, until just moments ago, what she was going to do.
“A ‘pillar of the community’? Ugh. Sounds like the statue in the town square.” She shivered. “No. I’d never go that far, even for Nick. But surely there’s a way to get our inheritance without resorting to marriage.”
“Oh, yeah? How?”
She hoisted herself up on the porch railing, settling her flowered skirt primly around her knees. “Well…” She drew the syllable out, stalling. “Perhaps I can persuade this executioner—”
“Executor.”
“Whatever.” She folded her hands in her lap. “Persuade this Logan fellow that I’m not quite the hopeless flake Joshua said I was.” She smiled. “I mean, I do pay my bills, keep a clean house and floss twice a day. I haven’t shot anyone lately, and I don’t think anybody knows about that time I doubleparked outside the Saveway.”
Ted’s brown gaze remained skeptical. “Yeah, it sounds easy. But the one thing you’re not factoring in is your—”
“My pride?” She raised her chin. “I may be a bit…independent, but believe it or not, I can humble myself. Occasionally, anyhow.” She bit her lip. “Temporarily.”
“Actually it’s not your pride I’m worried about. It’s…well, to put it frankly, your temper.” He lifted a finger to silence her indignant protest “Come on, you know it would make you crazy to let Logan paw through your receipts, deciding whether you paid too much for spaghetti sauce or underwear. You’re just not the type of woman who submits to nonsense like this.”
She scowled. His speech had the irritating ring of truth. “You could be wrong, you know,” she said haughtily. “You’re the dean of boys, not the Freud of females.”
“Yeah, I could be wrong. But I’m not” He tugged on her ponytail, grinning. “I don’t know exactly what would make you surrender yourself to Clay Logan’s authority—or any other man’s for that matter—but I know what won’t. Twelve million dollars won’t”
But five hours later, when the police called to tell her that Figgy, Bash and Nick were down at the police station, she discovered that Ted was wrong.
Twelve million dollars would.
The weather was gloomy all that Saturday morning. It never quite rained, but the sky was bad-tempered, growling and spitting irritably from the time Melanie woke up until the moment she parked her tiny sedan in the circular driveway of Cartouche Court.
She sat for a moment after turning off the ignition, listening to the crackles and snaps of the old engine as it settled. The noises got weirder every day. Hooking her hands over the steering wheel, she peered up at the mansion. She hadn’t been here in years, but the place looked depressingly the same. Big and boxy, ugly and unwelcoming. She felt a sudden urge to start the engine and go home.
Why was she being such a wimp? She wasn’t an eight-yearold orphan anymore. Climbing out of the car, she adjusted her calf-length navy blue skirt, did a quick button check, then used a forefinger to chase any stray lipstick back within the lines. Everything was where it belonged, she decided—except her heart, which was exhibiting a regrettable tendency to beat rather high in her throat.
She slowly ascended the marble front steps and rang the bell. While she waited, she studied the pseudo-Grecian statues that flanked the double front doors. She’d always found them disturbing—two naked, armless females who appeared to have been frozen midflight as they tned to escape the house. Probably Uncle Joshua’s definition of the perfect woman, Melanie thought. Mute, helpless and hopelessly trapped.
“Morning, ladies,” she said, patting the truncated shoulder of the nearest statue. “I’m back, you see. I thought I had gotten away, but apparently it’s not that easy.” She wrinkled her nose. “I guess I don’t have to tell you about that.”
Suddenly the front door swung open, and Melanie’s mouth went embarrassingly slack. For a minute, it was as if the past sixteen years had never even existed. In spite of her grownup clothes, in spite of the lipstick and the car keys, Melanie was eight years old again, staring up into the sourest face she had ever seen.
“Mrs. Hilliard.” Her voice even sounded like a child’s. She cleared her throat, swallowed, then tried again. “It’s good to see you, Mrs. Hilliard. How have you been?”
The woman’s long, square jaw tightened, and her black eyes, surrounded by dark smudges below and thick, slashing black brows above, narrowed. “I’ve been missing your uncle, that’s how I’ve been,” Mrs. Hilliard said flatly.
