when Miss Willa was gone.
God knew Jones had regrets about his family. He liked his life. He loved his job. But if he could do it all over again, he couldn’t say he would make the same choices. There was a lot he hated about his family’s way of life, but … he’d missed so much. He hadn’t gotten to stand up at his brothers’ and sisters’ weddings. He had nieces and nephews he’d never met. Birthdays and holidays and anniversaries, celebrations and funerals, good times and bad …
Reece broke the silence. “The furniture looks like it’s been here since the cottage was built.”
“It probably has. There’s a fortune in Chinese antiques in this room alone.” He opened the drapes, letting in the afternoon light, before sitting on an unpadded imperial rector’s chair. “The Howard who originally settled here was a sea captain. There’s a maritime phrase, Fair winds and following seas. A wish for good weather. That’s where the name comes from.”
Head tilted to one side, she sat beside Mick, resting her hand on his back. “I didn’t know that. I told you, I didn’t learn the family history.”
“He acquired treasures from all over the world. I’m sure Miss Willa’s given you the rundown of some things in the house.”
“Some. I was always terrified, using lamps and dishes and furniture that were irreplaceable. Being afraid made me feel clumsy and insignificant.”
There it was again—that hurt. Vulnerability. She’d grown up. She’d gone from cute and awkward to beautiful, from a child to a capable woman, but it didn’t seem as if time had done a thing to change that part of her.
Seem. Which meant it wasn’t automatically true. She could be a world-class manipulator. After all, she still hadn’t acknowledged that they’d met before. She hadn’t asked the obvious question: How is your brother? After all, she’d spent a lot more time with Glen that summer than with Jones.
Leaning back in the chair, he rested his ankle on the other knee. “Those months you stayed here … this must have been a great place to run wild. All the woods, the creek, the river … you and Mark must have had some fun times.”
“Not particularly.”
“You didn’t get along?”
A jerky shrug. “He was a fourteen-year-old boy. I was his thirteen-year-old girl cousin. I think we were genetically predisposed to not get along.”
“So what did a thirteen-year-old girl do for fun out here alone?”
Her expression shifted, darkness seeping into her eyes, caution into her voice. “I read a lot. Spent as much time away from the house as I could.”
The reading part was true; she’d been lying in a patch of sunlight near the creek reading the first time he and Glen had seen her, and she’d always brought books along every other time.
“Didn’t you have someone to play with? A neighbor’s kids?”
The caution intensified before she answered on a soft exhalation. “No.”
Realizing he was holding his own breath, Jones forced it out and did his best to ignore the disappointment inside him. Okay. So she was a liar. It wasn’t a surprise. It wasn’t even a real disappointment. She was a Howard, and Howards were part of that segment of rich, powerful people who felt money raised them above everyone else. They weren’t bound by the rules that applied to everyone else. They were, as Miss Willa made clear at every turn, better.
Truthfully, though … he was disappointed.
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