taken this too personally—as if John had lied to her.
‘I’m going to do an Internet search on codes tonight to see what I can find out.’
‘Nell, this isn’t your problem.’
‘That’s not what it feels like.’ She finished and pushed the letter back towards him. ‘Besides, it won’t hurt to have a copy.’
He supposed not.
‘C’mon.’ She rose. ‘We haven’t checked John’s cottage yet. There might be a box or two of his belongings left behind, something that might give us a clue.’
He rose. What he should do was thank her for her help, and tell her this was no longer her problem. Except...it wouldn’t hurt to check out where John Cox had spent over thirty years of his life. It might give him a sense of the man. He’d take anything to gain some leverage in this wild goose chase.
And then he could leave.
For good.
He couldn’t prevent a sense of déjà vu when they stepped out of the back door and made their way across the terrace. The yellow heads of dandelions waved in the breeze. Nell pointed to one. ‘I’ve always kind of liked them. They’re cheery, don’t you think? I must’ve spread a whole forest of them throughout the garden. I loved it when they turned puffy and I could blow their seed heads and set them free. I used to think if I could blow the entire seed head off in one breath and make a wish it’d come true.’
‘Did your wishes ever come true?’
She lifted an eminently elegant shoulder. ‘I expect one or two must’ve, I made so many. Law of averages would suggest so.’
She was lying. He wasn’t sure how he knew. Maybe it was the way she lifted a hand to her face to brush an imaginary strand of hair back behind her ear. Maybe it was the way she studiously avoided meeting his gaze.
And maybe he was watching her just a little too closely? Gritting his teeth, he forced his eyes to the front.
They passed the garden shed. They moved beyond Nell’s first flowerbed until they reached the very back of the property. Nell pushed open a gate in a six-foot-high bamboo fence to reveal a cottage on the other side. Rick followed. ‘You’d have no idea this was here if you didn’t know about it.’
‘That’s the point. Heaven forbid that one should catch a glimpse of where the hired help live.’
He couldn’t tell from either her voice or her bearing whether she subscribed to that view or not. She didn’t give him the time to figure it out either, but strode up the two steps leading to the cottage’s veranda and reached for the door handle...and then came up short when it didn’t budge. She turned back to him with a shrug. ‘Locked. I wonder where the set of master keys for the property can be?’
He knew how to pick a lock...
Nell moved back down the steps, dropped to her knees and reached beneath the veranda. When she drew her hand back she held a key.
It hit him then that he wouldn’t be able to just walk away. Nell knew his father and this property like no one else did. If he wanted to solve this mystery he was going to need her help.
Nell was going to be the key.
* * *
Nell tossed the key to Rick.
He caught it as if he’d been catching curve balls all of his life. Which was probably true. She bit back a sigh. She couldn’t change Rick’s past any more than she could change her own.
‘You can do the honours,’ she told him.
‘Why?’
She blinked. ‘What on earth do you mean—why?’ She didn’t feel like explaining her ambivalence. ‘Because you’re closer.’
‘Was closer,’ he corrected.
How was it possible for this man to divine her private moods so accurately? Who are you really angry with? She shied away from that one. ‘As far as I know, this place hasn’t been disturbed in months. If there’re any creepy-crawlies in there you can encounter them first.’
‘I’m not buying that for a moment, Princess. I just saw the way you stuck your hand beneath the veranda. You’re not afraid of spiders or insects.’
‘What about ghosts?’ The words shot out of her before she could pull them back. She grimaced at his raised eyebrow. ‘Not a literal one. Ghosts from the past.’
She ruffled out the skirt of her dress to give her an excuse not to look at him. ‘This area was always out of bounds to me when I was a child. I’m still not feeling a hundred per cent easy being here.’
‘Princess, you own this cottage. It’s yours. You have every right to be here.’
She lifted her chin and considered him. He raised that eyebrow then, as if daring her. She plucked the key from his fingers, stuck it in the lock and turned it. ‘I don’t even know if the power’s still connected.’ She swung the door open, but when she tried the switch, light flooded the room.
She stepped inside with Rick at her heels. The door led straight into the living room. ‘I’ve never been in here before,’ she murmured, ‘so I don’t know the layout.’
This room and the adjoining kitchen were sparsely furnished but, other than a faint layer of dust, it was remarkably clean and tidy. She strode across to the kitchen area and hunted through the cupboards. ‘There’s some crockery, cooking utensils and cutlery, but there doesn’t seem to be anything personal,’ she said, turning back to the living area.
‘Not much in here either,’ Rick said, closing the drawer of the sideboard.
‘Maybe we’ll have more luck in the bedrooms.’
But, other than a bed, a mattress encased in plastic—presumably to protect it from the dust—and some linens, they found no trace of John Cox’s presence in either of the two bedrooms. It was as if he’d been washed away when the cleaners had come in. Whoever her father had hired, they’d done their job to perfection.
Nell dropped to the wooden chair that sat at the desk in the smaller of the two bedrooms. Had John used this room as a study? If so, what had he studied? What, other than gardening, had he been interested in?
Other than avoiding his paternal duties, that was.
She glanced at Rick. She couldn’t tell what impression the cottage had made on him. If any.
He turned as if he’d felt the weight of her gaze. ‘You were hoping we’d find something.’
‘Of course I was. Weren’t you?’
‘I thought it a fool’s mission from the beginning.’
Oh, great. She glared at the ceiling. So not only was she a spoiled little rich girl, but she was a fool too? She straightened when she realised what she was staring at. ‘A loft hatch.’ She rose and set her chair beneath it and then gestured
