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I cast a quick, dubious look at Margot. What about Handyman /gardener needed was vague?
“We’ll show you the courtyard,” Margot said, smiling at Matt. “And you can see the scope of the work.”
Margot was determined—more determined now that a man was here, handsome and virile, stepping into the Manor—than she’d been in front of the greenhouse two days ago, cradling her dead orchids.
Men in general were a danger to the O’Neill women; it had been proven time and time again men brought out the worst in us. The most notorious aspects of our already inappropriate characters.
Even me.
Especially me.
It had been years since my heart had thundered in my chest like this—and that had not ended all that well.
“I’ve lived in this house my whole life,” Margot was saying, her hand cradled in Matt’s elbow as she led them through the shabby manor as if it was still the best property in the area. “And my mother did the same before me.”
“It’s a beautiful house,” Matt said, glancing up at the high ceilings, all of which needed spackle and paint. The mahogany floors beneath our feet were beginning to buckle and sag in places and I watched as Margot led him around the worst patches, as though they were avoiding puddles in the rain. “Did your family build it?” He asked.
I laughed and Margot tossed me a wicked look over her shoulder. “Yes,” Margot said. “My great-great-grandfather built this house.”
As a saloon and whorehouse.
All of us stepped from the dark hall, with its offshoots of parlor, dining room, solarium and library, through the glass doors into the middle courtyard.
“Beautiful,” Matt said, and I wondered if he really meant it. He seemed to. All that predatory intensity was dialed down for a moment as his eyes swept over the hedges and lilies I kept in order. There were tables to rest cups of coffee and cushioned coaches for reading. And silence.
Everything I loved.
“Yes,” Margot agreed, with a sideways look at me. “The middle courtyard is not the problem.”
The phone rang inside the house and Margot cast me a pleading look, which I scowled at.
Right. I was going to leave this strange man alone with my aging grandmother. Particularly when said aging grandmother insisted on wearing the only real jewelry we had left that was worth anything.
I didn’t care how handsome this Matt guy was, he could still break Margot’s wrist with one hand.
I was distrustful. Sue me.
“I’ll be right back,” Margot said, giving Matt’s arm a squeeze. “My granddaughter will show you the rest of the way.”
Margot left, blue silk fluttering behind her.
“Grandmother?” he said. “She looks like she could be your mother.”
“She’s not,” I said. The subject of daughters and mothers was not discussed at the Manor.
“Is your mother here?” he asked, and I stared hard at Matt, as if to see past his green eyes and strong arms to the heart beating under that lean chest.
“Strange question.”
“Just a question.”
He stared right back at me, his eyes wide open as if he had nothing to hide.
Of course, that had to be a lie. Everyone had something to hide.
“No,” I said. “She isn’t. I’ll show you the back courtyard.”
I led him through a second set of glass doors into a brighter hall leading left to the kitchens and cellars and right to the upstairs bedrooms.
“So why don’t you call her grandmother?” Matt asked and I rolled my eyes.
“Does she look like a grandmother?”
Matt smiled. “Good point. Does anyone else live here?”
“That doesn’t have anything to do with our garden,” I said.
“Yes, but—”
I pushed open the old oak doors to the bright sunlight and overgrown majesty of our secret garden.
“Holy—” he breathed, stepping up beside me on the cracked stone steps.
“The greenhouse needs to be repaired, and the trees, bushes, flowers and weeds all need to be dealt with.” I pointed to the worst of them, along the west wall. “There—” I indicated the center cluster of vines under the cypress “—is a bird feeder and bench under that mess that we’d like to see again. The back wall—” I swept my arm over to where the graffiti had been cleaned “—needs to be fixed and we think we need some security cameras—”
“Security? Why?”
“High school students like to break in, cause some trouble.” I was trying to be nonchalant. But you could still read the words we couldn’t quite get off the back wall.
“High school students did that?” he asked, pointing to the wrecked greenhouse, and I nodded. “Seems like a matter for the police.”
“We’ve tried that,” I said. And that was all I said. I wasn’t giving this man more than what he absolutely needed.
His eyes scanned the property as if he were putting price tags on everything.
And I didn’t like that one bit.
He was probably wondering what could be stolen, despite the tour he’d had through the shabby manor, stripped of its antique furniture and silver. Those diamonds Margot sported and my own small fortune in computer equipment were the only things of value left. But Matt didn’t know that.
