Ever After Read online

  “You’re worse than a puppy.” He held my arms to steady me. For a second, we stayed. His hands on my arms, my gaze and his tethered. Cole dropped my arms and walked around me.

  One flashlight. Great.

  “I swear, only you and moles would enjoy wallowing around in dirt.” Cole muttered the whole time as he walked ahead of me. Again, he almost slammed me in the barn door. “Pick up the pace.”

  Cole stopped in front of the rose maze, an arch of greenery filled with little boughs of roses soaring over our heads.

  “The rose maze? What are we doing here?” This was not the dark, looming entrance I had expected.

  “The entrance is in the center.” Cole sent me an infuriating smile. He took the twists and turns so fast a normal person wouldn’t have had time to memorize the maze. Cole was a trained mouse in a lab experiment. He never took one wrong turn.

  It took us a full ten minutes to reach the center. The last row of hedges sandwiched us, leading into an opening surrounded by a wall of roses. A cement, 3-dimensional monument of a family tree with plaques dangling from branches was the centerpiece of the maze. Four stone benches surrounded it.

  Cole kicked dirt clods from around a spot three feet from the middle bench. He reached into the vine floor covering and pulled a loop attached to a door. Grass roots made a ripping noise as he shoved the door to the side. He waved the flashlight’s yellow glow down wooden dust covered steps. “See? Dirt.”

  The hole was dark and musty.

  “Now. You’ve seen it. Let’s go.” He started to drop the wood panel back over the hole.

  I stopped him. “Oh, no. You’re not getting off that easy.”

  “You can’t possibly want to go down there. Are you sure you’re a girl?” Cole’s eyes locked with mine, but as soon as he said it, his cheeks flushed crimson.

  I grinned, jerked the flashlight from him, and started down the wooden steps, each moaning under my weight. When I got to the bottom, I waved the light over three paths on all sides of me.

  Cole came down after me, cursing the whole way.

  Rotting garbage and the stench of something dead stifled me. I pinched my nose and breathed through my mouth. Suddenly, wallowing around in dirt didn’t seem like such a good idea. Not even with him. “What is that smell?”

  “Probably a tunnel straight to the septic tank. Told you this was no place for a—you.” He cleared his throat.

  “What’s in that direction?” I pointed to tunnel number two with my flashlight.

  “The woods and a swimming hole.”

  “And tunnel number three?” I jabbed the flashlight opposite the sewage tunnel.

  Cole straightened and faced the steps.

  “What? What is it?”

  “The basement.”

  “And why didn’t you take me through there instead of through all this trouble?”

  “Because the door is covered from inside,” Cole said. “And even if it wasn’t, I told you. This isn’t a place for a girl-scout scavenger hunt. There are snakes, spiders, and possibly larger animals that could hurt you.”

  “Have you ever seen any down here? Really, how big could a mole get?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes, I have. Now let’s go before one takes your leg off.” Cole took the flashlight.

  My interest changed to fear. Then I caught his smart-aleck joke.

  The tilting steps took us back into summer sunlight. The floral scent of the fresh air lightened my mood.

  “Now let’s finish this tour.” Cole shoved the door back over the hole and brushed past me.

  We left the confines of the rose maze and came up on another out building. Cole stopped in front of it.

  “Like the main house, the carriage house was somewhat extravagant. The second floor has been uninhabited living quarters since the early 1900s. It used to be the housekeeper’s quarters, like my cottage.” Distanced from the main house, a little cottage was nestled in the trees.

  That made sense. If I was as cranky as him, I’d want to be alone too.

  His brow wrinkled as he regarded his home. “It’s my getaway when the drama at the house gets to be too much.”

  “Why would you stay in that little thing at all?” By the count of windows on the front, which was two, there couldn’t be more than four rooms.

  “I like the privacy.” He paused. “Unless me staying out there conflicts with your idea of where hired help should live?”

  Did he really think I was that callous?

  Cole stepped into the tool shed to replace the flashlight and reappeared in the bright sun.

  My breath caught in my throat for a second. “You can drop it with the attitude. I get it. You hate me and can’t wait for me to leave, but I have to find out what’s going on here. And if I do actually gain control of this house, I have no plans of changing anyone’s way of life.”

  Just when hot tears threatened to spill, Cole watched me thoughtfully.

  “I take care of what I care about. And this house is the only place I could ever picture myself living.” He examined my face intently.

  “So, you actually care about something? Because it sure seems you couldn’t care less about how you make other people feel.” My voice cracked on the last word.

  “Oh, no. Don’t do that.” He started to step closer but stopped. He made a funny, uncomfortable noise. “You are not going to cry on me.”

  “Then quit trying to make me.”

  “I wasn’t—okay, listen. I don’t hate you. I’m concerned with the job security of the only family I’ve ever known. I don’t mean to attack you personally. Much.” He let a half-hearted smile through.

  My breath snagged in my throat, the tears forgotten.

  “I’m attacking what Ava’s actions might mean for all of us.” For once he appeared vulnerable, which made it hard to hold a grudge. Cole twitched and took a step away. His face brightened.

  I sniffled and wiped my eyes.

  “Come on. There’s more to see.”

  Trees shaded a trail lined with twigs and summer flowers.

  This time he walked slower.

  “There’s something at the end I was sorta hoping you wouldn’t tear down, if you are in fact the sole heiress.” He flicked his eyebrow into a quick arch and grinned apologetically.

  “A shopping mall would look great right about here,” I said. “You’re not going to blindfold me, are you?”

  “Fresh out of blindfolds.” He gave me an appreciative appraisal.

  Finally. A full-on look.

  “But that would have been some great comic relief. Watching you stumble through the woods all day.” He relaxed and seemed to be happy.

  Forgiven.

  I fell in step beside him. “Yeah, funny. Didn’t you get enough of that last night?”

  He turned away with a smoldering, burn-my-heart-into-a-pile-of-ash grin.

  Once we were about a half mile into the woods, we came upon a clearing. In the center, lampposts surrounded a statue of a young woman.

  “Wow. This is amazing.” I stepped onto the landscaping stone stacked around her.

  “Don’t touch—I mean. Be careful. It’s old.” Cole eyed my outstretched hand with nervous concern.

  The birds stopped chirping. The breeze stilled. The gray stone’s coolness sent a tingle of electricity that tickled my fingertips. A lone bird chirped in the distance, and a breeze wafted against my face. I stepped back. She stood five feet against the blue sky. The artist had definitely captured the family resemblance.

  “She looks a lot like a painting of Ava I saw in the house earlier,” I said, awestruck. The statue had a name plate, but time and weather left only a date.

  1879. I turned to Cole, wide-eyed.

  The statue absorbed Cole’s hard stare.

  “That’s not Ava.” The period at the end of his statement stabbed me, but he shook his head, and the hard stare melted. With the same melancholy, he crouched
down to pull a few weeds from the bed of clover surrounding her. After the hard man routine he’d portrayed the night before, this was completely out of character.

  “If it was put here in 1879, and she was a real person, then you keep it landscaped for a girl who died years before you were born.”

  He got lost in the statue’s face, somewhere else maybe? Pain, anguish, happiness, loss all in the same expression.

  I climbed down and gave him his weird moment. From the backside of the sculpture, the intricate detail on the girl’s dress was even more evident. A wedding dress. It was the girl in my dreams.

  “Ridiculous, huh?” He reached down to pull a new little weed from between the stones encasing the clover bed surrounding her feet.

  “Not at all. Someone must have thought enough of her to put the statue here in the first place. It’s sweet, odd, but sweet that you carry on the tradition.” I took a few more steps back.

  The nameless woman held two four leaf clovers cupped in outstretched hands. She looked down at them with wonder on her face. If anyone knew “her” story, it was Cole. He knew every other aspect of the estate’s history.

  I wanted to ask, but his silence was deliberate. “She’s too beautiful to do anything but preserve.”

  “She had a tragic life.” He nodded in the direction of the house. “We should get back.”

  “The room I’m staying in. It was hers?” I dared ask.

  Cole stiffened. “This was a mistake.”

  The psychologist in me just couldn’t shut up. “Your uncle is right, you know. She’s dead and a very unhealthy fixation. If she were alive right now, she’d be the age of your great, great, great grandmother.”

  Cole swung around, his face hardened, and his pupils dilated until they were almost black.

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about. So don’t turn your pitying eyes on me as if you think I’m some crazy, obsessed man.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  His jaw worked and his fists opened and closed. He made solid, angry thuds as he stomped from the statue down the path.

  That was the end of that conversation.

  Okay, so maybe I’d overstepped my boundaries. Maybe she’d been an ancestor or something? What if she’d been murdered and the mystery had never been solved? There were many what if’s I hadn’t considered before I’d opened my big mouth.

  “Cole, wait!” I ran to catch up to him.

  Cole halted, keeping his back to me.

  “Weird things are happening—have been happening to me since I got here. I’m sorry if I make weird assumptions. I just. I don’t know. Don’t be mad, but I have to know. Is this house h-haunted”—I tripped up on the word—“or something?”

  Stepping a cautious arm’s length away from him, I reached for his arm.

  He jerked. With a flicker of movement, he was out of my reach as he spun on me, but he inched closer to me with each word. A blood vessel on his forehead pulsated and his normally gorgeous green eyes were dark with hate. And over a stupid statue of a stupid dead girl. “Look, all your little suspicions are just that. Suspicions. It’s just an old house. Stop psychoanalyzing everything around you just to ease your boredom.”

  “You’re one to talk about psychoanalyzing. You don’t even know me, and you’ve acted as my judge, jury, and executioner. You definitely need anger management classes. If you don’t lighten up, Nancy is right. You’re going to end up old and alone.”

  He laughed. “What. Did you have plans to help curb my loneliness?”

  My cheeks flamed. “I wouldn’t procreate with you if the planet’s survival depended on it.”

  “You’re so scientific about it.” He gave me that cute little infuriating bad boy grin. “What? You can’t say have sex? I bet you’re one of those my-career-is-my-life kinda girls without a personal life.”

  His eyes worked over my body as if he could sense no man had ever touched it.

  “And guys like you are exactly why.” I spun on my heel and made sure not to step into his precious personal space as I passed him. I would lock myself in my room to ensure I didn’t have to encounter him again.

  All this over a girl who could be his great, great, grand-something. He was one to talk about needing a personal life. God, he was infuriating.

  I flopped on my bed, angry tears staining my cheeks. When I could cry no more, I covered my head with my pillow and wished I could bring Mama here to help me. She’d know exactly what to do. She always did. We talked about everything.

  Just as I picked up my phone to call her, chimes that sounded like church bells rang. I’d never heard the doorbell, but it matched the house in grandeur. Moments later, someone rapped on my door.

  I sat up, sniffled, and pressed my hair flat. “Come in.”

  Nancy opened my door and smiled. “You have a guest.”

  Chapter 5

  Past Nancy and down the staircase, a blond surfer looking guy in a suit waited as he looked around the grand entrance. Ava caught me by the arm before I started out of the room.

  “Ava’s lawyer. He’s a looker, but don’t let him fool you.”

  I pulled back into the room, heart pounding.

  “What does he want with me?”

  Nancy shrugged. “Just keep him within arm’s distance, honey.”

  “Give me a few minutes to freshen up.”

  “Don’t waste too much time,” she said.

  I ran to the bathroom, slid a brush through my tangled waves, splashed some water on my face, and tested my breath. Not bad.

  When I got to the bottom of the stairs, my guest ran his hand through neatly trimmed hair as he drank me in, the gesture somewhat of a mating call. His fashionable suit made my clothes look like thrift store hand me downs.

  Nancy walked past us and turned up her nose at him.

  Red flag.

  Cole had said something about people flocking around me for money or something to that extent. Was he one of them?

  Before I could protect my hand, he pulled it to him and kissed the back of it, allowing his lips to linger too long.

  I pulled it back and straightened my shirt with a shiver. What a creep.

  “Hello, Miss Knowles. Preston Dawkins. I’ll be assisting you with all your financial concerns. From here on out, don’t hesitate to call on me with anything you need.”

  Was he Dalton’s long lost cousin?

  He looped his arm around my waist and led me to the living room. “You will inherit a substantial amount of wealth, and Miss Rollins saw to it that you wouldn’t be alone in her absence. I am here to help you learn how, where, and when to move the money. There are certain obligations that come with your new standing. But you just let me deal with all the ins and outs. You need not worry. You’ll be safe in my hands.”

  He slyly took my hand again before I could put space between us.

  My heart thrummed in my ears. “Exactly how much of me are you aimed at having in your hands, Mr. Dawkins?”

  Mr. Dawkins grinned but pulled me along, unbothered with my boldness.

  Once at the sofa, our noses were entirely too close as he dipped in to speak to me.

  “I mean no disrespect. You are a lovely young lady, but I wouldn’t make advances. At least not unwanted ones.”

  Oh, God. How gross.

  His blue eyes twinkled.

  I was about to pull away completely when a noise from the living room entrance distracted me.

  Cole.

  He stopped in his tracks diagonally behind Preston.

  Our gazes locked as Cole found Preston’s hands joined with mine.

  My cheeks burned.

  Preston turned but held me in a tight grip.

  “Cole.” Preston’s smile seemed to say, “You are beneath me.”

  The looks passed between them told me they weren’t strangers.

  “Preston,” Cole ground out between clenched teeth. “I see you’re makin
g yourself at home.”

  “I always do. Could you run along and get us some drinks? Scotch for me.” Preston released my hands and waved him away.

  Cole inhaled sharply and shot me a glare.

  “Oh, no. He’s not—I mean. This is embarrassing.” Nausea waved through my stomach.

  “Allie, what can I get for you?” he asked with a sarcastic little bow.

  “Oh, no, you don’t have to—”

  “It’s okay. What would you like?” Cole’s nostrils flared.

  “Water.” I looked away.

  “You let your employees call you by first name?” Preston asked.

  Cole disappeared through the swinging service door.

  Preston’s eyes twinkled. “Miss Rollins would have never allowed employee-family fraternization. No matter. Seems we have some business to take care of.”

  A safe distance beside him on the sofa, I waited as he separated ominous amounts of paperwork on the coffee table. “Is all this necessary? I mean, shouldn’t we wait for the reading of the will?”

  “No need. The reading is a legal technicality, and as far as Miss Rollins was concerned, for show,” Preston said with a flare of superiority.

  “The decedent was dead set on what she wanted—no pun intended, of course. I’ll guide you through everything, and when the time comes to start signing documents, I’ll be right by your side. I am good at what I do, very good.” He pulled more papers from his briefcase. “Read these, and after the funeral, we can get together for lunch. I have a feeling we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other over the next few days.”

  “That’s tomorrow. Wouldn’t that be inappropriate, so soon after Ms. Rollin’s passing?” Her body was in the next room, barely cold, and this guy wanted me to—wait. This was real. This was really happening.

  Cole re-entered, drinks rattling on a tray. His nostrils flared as he rested the tray on the coffee table.

  My hands shook too much to hold a drink.

  Cole slid a suspicious look in Preston’s direction. “If you need anything, I’ll be right outside.”

  I nodded.