around one of the chairs, he dropped into it and leaned his head against its high back. “Me, I think.” He settled his gaze on Victoria’s then. “She’s the only family I have left, and I love her. I can’t not go.” He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. He’d agonized over this decision all night. “A week from Saturday is her birthday for Christ’s sake. I have to be there. But two weeks?” He shook his head. “Can I tolerate two whole weeks without the rush of a legal coup?”
Victoria flared her palms. “You said yourself that considering your mother’s recent heart attack and her age, you couldn’t afford not to go for an extended visit.”
Zach nodded. “Seventy-five’s a major milestone. And the heart attack scared the hell out of me. I have to stay the whole two weeks. I’m just not sure either of us will survive it. We’re both too accustomed to having our way.”
Victoria smiled with understanding. She, of all people, knew Zach rarely took no for an answer when he wanted something. He’d inherited that tenacious trait from his mother.
“Forget work,” Victoria suggested. “Enjoy your mother. Let this be her time. Acquiesce to her every demand. Who knows? Maybe you’ll have more fun than you expect.”
He arched a skeptical brow. “In Kelso, Indiana? Population not nearly enough. I doubt it.” Zach stood. “But I’ll go.”
“Good.” Victoria rose from her chair. “I’ll see you in two weeks then.”
Zach hesitated at the door and produced a feigned smile. “And I’ll enjoy every minute of it if it kills me.”
There was a very good chance it would, Zach didn’t add as he slipped out of his boss’s office and closed the door behind him. He hadn’t spent more than a day or two at one time back home in too many years to remember. It was true that part of the reason was the fact that he and his mother were so very much alike, both determined to do things their own way. But Zach dearly loved his mother and he always deferred to her wishes. Always. She had taught him to go after what he wanted with a vengeance, and to never say die. Like any good son, Zach had learned his lesson well. Only once in his entire life had he backed away from what he really wanted. And therein lay the other part of the reason he rarely went home for a lengthy stay.
But he didn’t know why he was worried so much about it, she wouldn’t be there anyway.
“YOU TELL that old battle-ax that I wouldn’t coordinate her birthday party now if she begged me to!”
Beth McCormick stared, appalled, at her mother, then turned her attention to her mother’s employer. “Mrs. Ashton, I’m sure Mother didn’t mean to say battle-ax. You’ll have to forgive her, she’s been under a lot of stress lately, and—”
“You’re darned tootin’ I meant battle-ax,” Helen McCormick argued, her dark eyes glittering with anger. She stood now, her fists planted firmly on her hips. “I’m washing my hands of the whole affair!”
Other than the red tingeing her cheeks, Colleen Ashton showed little outward reaction to her oldest friend’s outburst. Calmly, Colleen turned her regal head in Beth’s direction and smiled patiently. “Beth, if she chooses to resign her post as chairperson of my birthday party, it’s perfectly all right with me. I’m quite certain that the event will be a great deal more appealing and fresh without an old bag like her running the show anyway.”
Helen’s eyes bulged with indignation. “Why I ought to—”
“Mother.” Beth jumped to her mother’s side and tugged her toward the parlor door. “We’ll get this all straightened out, Mrs. Ashton. Don’t worry about anything. Your birthday will be everything you’ve dreamed it would be.”
Colleen rose, not a single elegant feather appearing ruffled. “I’m sure you’ll do a much better job than your mother.”
Beth stalled halfway to the door. She couldn’t mean… “But I—”
“Don’t worry, dear,” Colleen assured her, “Zach is arriving this afternoon. He’ll be more than happy to help you make all the arrangements. We won’t need anyone else,” she added with a pointed stare at her old friend.
Helen McCormick glared at Colleen Ashton, but to her credit she didn’t retaliate. Not verbally anyway. Instead, she stamped out of the room, down the entry hall and out the front door, slamming it firmly behind her.
Beth shrugged, uncertain what to say. Opting to remain silent for fear of unintentionally volunteering for something else she’d regret, Beth rushed out of the house to catch up with her mother.
“Mother!” Beth dashed across the porch and down the steps, then matched her stride to her mother’s furious one. “What in the world was that all about?”
“I have nothing else to say on the subject,” Helen snapped, then compressed her lips into that firm line that indicated the depth of her fury much more so than anything she could have said. Whatever had happened, Beth’s usually unflappable mother was fit to be tied.
“This is ridiculous,” Beth insisted. “You and Mrs. Ashton have been friends for a lifetime. What could possibly have happened to cause such a falling out?”
Helen stopped abruptly and turned to face her daughter. With her gray hair in its usual neat style, and wearing her jeans and work shirt, both meticulously pressed, she looked just as she always did—serene, earthy. But something was very, very wrong.
Beth’s mother had been head housekeeper and cook in the Ashton home for forty years. She’d been overseer of the estate grounds as well since Beth’s father died. Although she no longer did much of the actual work herself, no one dared to challenge Helen’s authority when it came to the care and keeping of the house or the property. Not to mention she’d been companion to and best friends with the mistress of the estate for most of that same forty years. Never in Beth’s entire life had she seen these two old friends at odds like this.
Never.
“Let’s just say that there are some things that need to be said, and it’s not my place to do the saying,” Helen told her without telling her anything at all.
With that, she stormed across the driveway and up the stone path of the east garden to her cottage.
Beth stared after her until she’d disappeared inside. Exasperated, Beth considered the small, inviting cottage in which she had grown up. Ivy partially covered the gray stone walls, while the east garden provided a picturesque setting with its array of rose bushes and other flowering shrubs that Beth’s father had seen to the nurturing of for nearly half a century. Ancient trees stood majestically above the wood-shingled roof, the heavy green boughs blending with those of the dense woods scarcely fifty yards behind the cottage. On the south side towered one massive old tree in particular that held fond memories for Beth. The giant oak on whose sturdy branch her father had hung her first swing with its wooden seat and heavy braided rope cables. The very one still hanging there today.
The memory of laughing as Zach Ashton pushed her ever higher in that swing flooded her being. She closed her eyes and relived the feel of the wind on her face, the sound of his deep, rich laughter. Though much older than she, he’d proven a reliable friend and even an occasional playmate. Beth opened her eyes and grimaced at the memory. Zach would likely consider that time with her more baby-sitting duty than playtime. The worst part was that she had been in love with him since she
