Ever After Read online

  “Allison Knowles.”

  “Glad to make your acquaintance.” He nodded politely, giving my hand a squeeze and returning it.

  “I guess I should say I’m sorry for your loss, but to be honest, I didn’t know the deceased, and I’m sure she didn’t know me.”

  “Oh, she knew you, my dear. You may have known nothing of her, but no price was too costly to make sure she left none of your secrets buried.” Thomas gave me quick little bow.

  “The last few family members could have scared the flies off a shit wagon. Looks like we finally lucked up,” the bellboy said with a country twang and a smirk. He gave me a shameless onceover and winked.

  “Dalton Anderson Cobb, mind your manners. I swear, you act like a family of gorillas raised you.” Thomas glared at Dalton.

  “Country born, country bred.” Dalton shrugged. He seemed harmless.

  Thomas cleared his throat and stiffly turned to me. “Since Ava’s death, everyone has slacked around here. Dalton is no exception. This place has been utter chaos.”

  As if on perfect cue, a crash came from the back of the house, and children’s laughter filled the air. Thomas’s handkerchief went to his brow, and he heaved out a labored sigh.

  “I pull my weight. To prove it”—Dalton turned to me—“Miss Knowles, if you need anything, day or night, let me know.”

  Thomas almost choked. He pointed to the trunk of the limo. “The luggage.”

  “Just trying to make her feel at home. You know. Showing some southern hospitality.” Dalton flicked an eyebrow at me from behind Thomas. His flirty smile might have worked with a multitude of screaming prepubescent teens, but I wasn’t game. I’d have to find a nice way to let him know if he continued to flirt.

  “Humph. I know your hospitality well. So does every other female employee here. Forgive his rudeness. Ava had a thing for taking in the local strays.”

  “I heard that,” Dalton called over his shoulder as he took more bags to a cart he’d pushed from the cement ramp at the front entrance.

  Jensen pulled the car around the circular driveway toward a group of outbuildings.

  Thomas turned back to me. In his best tour guide voice, he continued, “Now, my dear, let us focus on the front entrance of the house. Ava had guests delivered to the front door, but staff used the side entrance that leads from the garage you see nestled in the trees to your right.”

  The door was plain compared to the carved wood around the front entrance.

  “As you can see, Ava hated being showy about her money.” Thomas chuckled at his joke, then straightened.

  “So, I get the feeling she ran a tight ship?”

  “We’re still cleaning up beer cans from the party we threw when she took her last breath. She chewed people up and spit ‘em out. It was something to watch. I stayed out of her way till she keeled over. I knew the way of the beast.” Dalton winked at me and went on ahead of us, still speaking over his shoulder as he pushed the cart. “She loved to keep people on their toes. Even in her death, she leaves us with a little mystery. What made her choose lil ‘ol you to inherit all her earthly belongings?”

  I almost dropped my purse.

  Thomas’s mouth dropped into a horrified O. “That’s privileged information that should have been kept till the proper timing.”

  My voice faltered. “That’s impossible. This is clearly a case of mistaken identity.”

  “Your name is Allison Ainsley Knowles, am I correct?” The crimson drained from Thomas’s face. He smiled.

  I staggered. “Yes.”

  “On her death bed, Ava Rollins’s last words were, ‘If you don’t make sure that girl is here, on this property, in the event of my death, I’ll haunt you till you die.’ And she meant it. Upon checking that name against the copy of her will, we found”—he stopped and whispered close to my ear—“that she chose you as the sole beneficiary of everything she owned.”

  People of all ages, but of regal backgrounds, walked past us, their noses poked high in the air.

  “Everything?” Cold chills traveled my spine and my hands shook. This wasn’t real.

  “Everything. Upon the final reading of her last will and testament, the house, money, and business will be yours. But these vultures don’t need to know that yet. Half the women in her family are already going to pass out from revulsion when they see her reading her own will via video during the funeral. I think the lawyer already disclosed that much to you, am I correct?” Thomas didn’t wait for me to nod. “She liked you. There was something about you, she had said, many times, come to think of it. And you say you’d never met her?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, then,” Thomas said with a friendly pat on my shoulder. “Dalton’s right about something for once in his life. Why you?”

  “I have no clue.”

  “In order for the will to be fulfilled, it states that you have to stay here for a full month. During that full month, you can try to answer that question.”

  On an endless sidewalk, in raging summer heat, beside a house grander than anything I’d ever seen, I couldn’t make my legs work.

  “Come, Miss Knowles.” Thomas offered his arm with an amused grin.

  He guided me and my wobbly legs toward the entrance.

  As we ascended the steps, the sun reflected off a silver necklace of a woman in the window above us.

  I stopped on the cement landing just under the entrance of the house.

  The woman’s hair was pulled into a tight up-do, but she didn’t wear a housekeeping uniform. The dress dipped dangerously low in the front, too dressy for daytime lounging. Come to think of it, the dress wasn’t from this century.

  “Miss Knowles? Is everything all right?” Thomas scanned the fourth floor windows. Either he didn’t see it, or the woman’s presence wasn’t a shock to him.

  “Do you see her?” I nodded toward her. Mama always told me pointing is rude. Manners would be important here.

  The window was now black and vacant.

  “See who?” Thomas’s countenance stiffened.

  “I must be seeing things.”

  “Do you think you’ll try to stay out the terms of the will?” Thomas pulled us closer to the house as I nodded to people who passed us.

  “I think I want to hear them for myself.”

  The cart parked inside the gothic front entrance was empty.

  Dalton had lugged almost all my worldly belongings up the stairs in record speed.

  “Come, now. Once you’ve seen the house, I think you’ll be more excited about the prospect of staying. The house is more expansive than it looks from the outside, so the tour may take longer than you expect. If we don’t get a start soon, we’ll cut into dinner. To keep you safe from the brood of wolves Ava called her family, you can dine with me and the house staff just after they serve the formal meal.” He sounded like a daddy. One I’d never had before.

  Dalton appeared in the entrance and sauntered toward us with a flirty flick of his brow. “I can take her on a little tour if you get too tired, old man.”

  “I’d die of heat exposure before that happened, I can assure you.” Thomas protectively pulled me from Dalton’s clutches.

  He winked.

  I jerked my head forward.

  As Thomas and I walked around the flowerbed, toward the entrance, a dull pain stabbed my neck and suddenly intensified. I pressed my hand against my right shoulder and tilted my head. Odd. I’d never had tension headaches or sore shoulders with such a sudden onset.

  Dizziness overtook me. The world closed in. The mulch-hugged flowers, stone-bound walkways, and perfectly trimmed hedges rippled in waves. As if a wind crashed into me, I took a tumble into the long rectangular flowerbed lining the front of the house. I almost pulled Thomas with me, scraping my ankle in the process. I landed on my back, unable to move.

  An unseen weight pressed my chest, holding me to the ground.

  Struggling a
gainst it, I cried out and rolled from under its weight, ruining more flowers in the process. I scrambled to get up but made a mess of it.

  Thomas scuttled through an ocean of purple blooms.

  Dalton beat him to me. Going against the previous impression I had, he was a complete gentleman. So far. He came to his knees to assist me.

  “Are you okay?” Dalton reached out to me.

  “Um, I’m fine. I thought I felt—there was—never mind.” If I told them, they’d think I was nuts. Sitting up, I waved Dalton back so I could catch my breath.

  Snooty onlookers and a few staff members who had witnessed my fall from the grand entranceway stepped aside, clearing the way for a tall, male model to step into view.

  My heart skittered to a stop.

  This out of place character’s white T-shirt flexed across his folded arms, and his dark jeans hung low on his waist. A red strap looped over his right shoulder, suspending a weed eater. He never stepped out from the crowd, but the staff members directed their attention at him instead of me, their faces twisted with worry. He stood erect, motionless, staring. Wisps of brown hair shadowed his dark, chiseled features, as his green eyes narrowed to angry slits. Even at this distance, the odd color of his eyes stood out against the crowd. He only tilted his head as he noted the commotion Dalton and Thomas made over me.

  Something else held me down in the flowerbed. Utter and complete shock.

  It was him.

  The guy from my dreams, but he had a face.

  Was he breathing?

  Was I breathing?

  My cheeks burned.

  Like staring at the sun, it was difficult to look at him for more than a few seconds. So I didn’t.

  The maids turned me to face the guy as they pulled mulch from my clothes.

  His anger transformed to something else as he scanned the flowerbed, looked to the floors of the house above me, and then back to me. He worked his stubble-covered jaw and balled his fist.

  “I’m—I’m so sorry. I must have tripped.” I politely turned Thomas’s hand away. All I needed was to stumble again and pull him down in the flowerbed with me. “I hope I didn’t mess up the flowers.”

  I kept the member of the yard maintenance crew in my peripheral. It was sort of hard not to. I turned back to Thomas.

  “I’m so sorry. Are you okay? I should have been watching where we were walking. I’m so sorry.” Thomas’s cheeks blazed red as I tried to see around him.

  “Who is that?” I asked Thomas.

  The guy with the weed eater moved from my sight. He reappeared, standing on the right side of the onlookers as he stared at the fourth floor.

  Thomas ignored my question and worked to get me standing in an upright position.

  “Your whole backside is covered. I don’t know how you fell from there to here.” Dalton took too much time to dust the back of my pants.

  I shoved away his hands.

  His mischievous grin returned.

  Thomas glared at Dalton and led me out of the flowerbed.

  I stomped dirt off my feet and said to Dalton, “I’m going to have to keep an eye on you.”

  “You can put whatever you want on me.”

  The weed eater guy’s dark red lips pursed, and his strong jaw drew taut. He glared at Dalton.

  As if I were the nasty brown stuff dripping from a rusty hole in a dumpster, a clump of gaudy, over-dressed girls close to my age glared at me. As if I were the kind of girl they’d just left with a twenty-dollar bill behind a dumpster, the other guys sneered.

  I shuddered.

  “What happened exactly?” Thomas asked, his face white now.

  “Um, I fell?” Was there a right answer?

  “Well, come along, then. Let’s not give them anything else to whisper about.” Thomas tugged me past the crowd. The yard guy sank into the multitude and out of sight.

  Chapter 2

  I’d never had a headache like that. And I was never that clumsy. Tripping, maybe. Falling completely over, never. I could explain tripping over air if I’d seen the amazingly hot weed eater guy first. The front entrance and reception area had emptied of the audience. Hot weed eater guy was nowhere to be found.

  Thomas pulled me into the reception room and turned to drop his coat in a room behind the door.

  Wagon wheels clattered over the cobblestone drive, horses whinnied, and a driver with a strong deep voice called the horses to a halt. Two horses pulled a buggy up the crowded drive. The man drove right through the rest of the stragglers outside the entrance.

  He drove the wagon over the sidewalk and flower bed, stopped the buggy, and hopped down, the wagon creaking as his weight left the strained wood. He had shoulders so broad the fabric of his shirt stretched against its buttons. He turned and came straight toward me.

  My feet were rooted.

  As if I didn’t exist, the tall, handsome gentleman passed straight through me. In the direction the man had hurried, there was no one.

  “…and the reception room was designed by Ethan Kohler, an architect friend of the original owner.” Thomas hadn’t seen the man, so I had to keep cool.

  We walked through the heavy wooden doors, and to my left a staircase rolled up the wall of the vestibule. Cathedral ceilings soared over my head. The ceilings and staircase were similar in design.

  “…the Sistine Chapel with Greek mythological creatures instead of Biblical symbolism. No detail has been spared. If you look closely, you’ll see that each post in the staircase has a carving depicting a mythological character.”

  As I passed, I let my fingers trail over the eyes of Medusa. Rubies?

  The house was more like a museum, not a dwelling.

  “I especially love the pewter-colored chandelier hanging over our heads.” Thomas pointed. Attached to the center of the cathedral ceiling by a heavy black chain, hundreds of prisms dangled from its jeweled-claw feet. “Four gothic columns set twenty feet apart in a square support the soaring ceiling. Fifteenth or sixteenth century Finnish Tapestries garnish the walls, and reds and blues accentuate the jewels in the staircase.”

  My heels clicked on the polished marble floor. The walls were cool smooth stone. Two large urns filled with ferns marked the entrance to the living room.

  The whole situation was too amazing to be true. Definitely a mistake in identity.

  Behind the left urn, a pair of human eyes peered out, but the ferns arms slapped back together. Children’s giggles burst from the same direction, and my anxiety dipped. Probably the only pleasant family members in the house.

  “This is the living room.” Thomas swept his arm.

  I stepped inside.

  “Ava showcased her priceless stone sculptures and other works of art wall to wall here. To your left, you can probably walk into the tall stone fireplace.”

  It was so big a fire inside it would heat the whole downstairs. Sofas arranged in the shape of a U faced the fireplace.

  A few staff members passed us, nodding politely as they hurried to their tasks.

  “It’s something, huh? And this is just the living room.” Thomas grinned.

  “It looks like a castle.” A cool draft whisked by my feet.

  “You’ll meet the rest of the staff during your stay. They’re probably in hiding right now, trying to stay as far away from Ava’s blood family as possible. It won’t take you long to figure out why Ava left you everything instead of bestowing anything upon one of them,” Thomas said as he took me through the vestibule.

  Good. Maybe my dream guy would be in the lineup.

  Each time we passed a family member, they were unreceptive to any acts of civility, noses turned up as we passed.

  Thomas showed me each wing of the house on the first and second floors, the most important rooms that I would become familiar with if I stayed, Thomas noted.

  We rode a metal elevator with sliding cage doors coated in metal curly cues and flowers.

  He pat
ted the lever that shut the doors. “This old thing saves my knees daily.”

  The elevator screeched and clanked to a stop on the landing of the third floor.

  Thomas gave me its short history, then started the metal box into a downward descent.

  “What about the fourth floor?” I asked.

  “Well, we can go up, but we should stay inside the elevator cage. Bad floors.” He wouldn’t look at me.

  “I’d like very much to see it, if that’s okay?”

  Thomas reluctantly stopped the elevator and reversed directions. Through the bars, he watched the fourth floor as it came into view.

  The elevator groaned and creaked to a stop.

  I started to move toward the doors, but Thomas filled the elevator doorway.

  I gave him a surprised look.

  His voice shook. “We use it for storage mostly. It’s been this way as long as I can remember. Ava started renovations on it until…” He paused. His eyes darkened, and his shoulders sagged with a memory, but he continued. “Until a terrible day in June 1978. A construction worker fell from the window. His body was found on the grounds close to the house. She stopped all renovations that day. It wasn’t the first time something bad had happened here. She grew weary of tragedies linked to the house. But I won’t bore you with a bunch of superstitious legends. Anyway, the staff members aren’t allowed up here without express permission.”

  “I would imagine renovations wouldn’t be that hard.”

  The wallpaper hung in strips down the walls.

  Thomas’s posture straightened to rigidity, and his face paled again.

  I pointed to the window where I’d seen the woman earlier. “You said no one is allowed up here? When we entered the house, I’m beyond positive there was a girl standing in that window.”

  “I have both the keys to the stairwell, and the elevator is rarely used, so seeing anyone there isn’t likely. Maybe you took a harder fall than I thought.” Thomas straightened his tie and cleared his throat. He patted my back, passing off the incident with a nervous chuckle. “Let’s get back downstairs and get you to your room. You might need to rest.”