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At one point, Jace swung around and saw her standing there.
“Kelly, what’s wrong?” Jace asked, obviously recognizing how upset she was.
“Ari, could you please go to your room? Maybe look at one of your storybooks?”
“Wow! Good idea.”
Once the boy was safely out of earshot, Kelly raised the paper in her hand, and extended it toward Jace.
“What’s this?” he asked.
Kelly said nothing. She waited for him to take the papers. He came toward her. Kelly watched every movement as if in slow motion. As he got close enough to her, she moved a finger and the papers fell open. She knew he could read the red underlined words from where he stopped in his tracks.
“I can explain,” he said.
“That won’t be necessary,” she told him. “This speaks for you.” She kept her voice calm. While her heart was both breaking and beating as fast as a fan wheel, her body was straight and stiff. She looked the picture of control. “I can’t believe you’d betray me like this. You know how much this place means to me. I expect you to pack and leave within the hour.”
Kelly didn’t wait for him to reply. She turned and moved back to the hall. “I will miss Ari. The horses can stay until you make arrangements for them, but they must be gone by the end of the month.”
She left Jace without another word. Kelly limped back to her office and waited for him to go. She flinched fifteen minutes later when she heard the truck doors slam shut and the engine retreat down the driveway. He was out of her sight and no longer a thorn in her side.
Yet her heart bled.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SLEEP WASN’T AN OPTION. Kelly knew it when she got in bed at midnight. Now it was three in the morning and she was still awake. The house was empty. She was alone in the huge mansion. And she was well enough to get around without a mishap if she was careful. Mira and Drew had returned to their home. When they left, Kelly hadn’t yet found the contract. Mira didn’t know Kelly had thrown Jace out. Her cousin wouldn’t have let her be alone if she had.
Pushing the covers aside, she got out of bed. Grabbing the cane she’d left leaning against the night table, she stood up. She didn’t feel the pain in her leg. That in her heart overrode all other. She went to the kitchen and made herself a cup of coffee. She saw the package Mira used to make the coffee Jace liked. Closing her eyes for a moment, she wondered if everything she saw in the house would remind her of him. How long would it be before the ghost of his presence was no longer part of her routine?
Kelly shook her head. She thought it might be a long time. She wondered about Ari. Was he all right? How had he taken the sudden move? Did he miss her? She didn’t even say goodbye to him.
The horses whinnied in the barn. They should be asleep, but they, too, must feel the absence of their friend. She would have to exercise them, feed them and take care of them until Jace returned to collect them or he sent someone else.
The coffee brewed and Kelly took it to her office. It was the one place in the house where she had the least memories of Jace. She opened the desk drawer and found the original contract of sale. She went to the page where the rescind clause was written. She read it. Like the red-lined page on the copy Ari had innocently handed her, three years was typed in a black font. She’d read this contract. Her lawyer had read it. How many people in the law office had read it? That she didn’t know, but someone must have proofed it. Yet none of them, no one, including herself, had noticed that a line that should have said three months actually read three years.
And now she could possibly be turned out of her own home. She’d been here two years, but she felt the Kendall was more her home than any other place she’d ever lived and that included Short Hills. When she first moved into the mansion, the floors needed refinishing, the walls needed spackling, priming and painting. Some of them she’d had to demolish to the studs and replace. Kelly’s sweat was on those walls. It was in every aspect of this house. Her life was in this building. And she wasn’t giving it up without a fight.
She pushed the contract aside and did what she’d been trained to do. She developed a plan, created a defense for herself. By six o’clock she’d finished pulling together receipts and organizing them into categories related to the improvements she’d made to the property. She’d kept everything. She knew every penny that had been put into the Kendall, turning it from a run-down failure to the restored glory it was today.
At nine o’clock she called her lawyer and at nine-thirty she was walking into his office with barely a limp.
“This is an unexpected pleasure,” Harold Crawford said. “I heard you had a good crowd at the open house. I wish I could have been there, but I was out of town. I’d love to see the old house again.”
“Maybe I’ll give you a tour if I live there long enough.”
He frowned as only a lawyer could. “Did you pull my contract?” she asked.
He lifted the file folder. “We had to get it from the archives. It was just printed and handed to me before you arrived.”
“Look at page fifteen,” Kelly said.
Harold flipped to the page.
“Third paragraph from the bottom. Line seven.” She’d memorized the location. He read for a moment, then looked up at her, clearly distressed.
“It is my belief that Jason Kendall is planning to have the sale rendered null and void.”
“Have you spoken to him about this?”
Kelly shook her head. “When I found out I was too angry to do anything except throw him out.”
“We’ll fight this if he does,” Harry said.
“No, Harry, I can’t fight. I’m drained.” At that point, having no sleep, Kelly felt as if she’d aged ten years. “I poured everything I had into the Kendall. Everything. If he fights me, I can’t afford to pay for a defense.”
“This is partly my fault. I’ll see to it that corrections are made. If Mr. Kendall wants to contest the sale, we’ll deal with it.”
Kelly stood up and went to the door.
“Kelly,” Harry called softly to her. “I remember what happened.” He took a moment to scan the papers. Kelly looked at him. “This was the year my secretary was ill. We had a temp in the office—”
“It doesn’t matter, Harry,” Kelly interrupted him.
“It does matter. Don’t worry over this. I’ll get in touch with Mr. Kendall’s attorney and we’ll work it out.”
“Thank you.”
She was near tears, but she refused to let them fall. This matter wasn’t over, but Kelly didn’t want to fight Jace. Why did she ever think that she could take control of the Kendall? She’d paid for it fair and square, but even now it felt as if Jace had a better claim than she did. He’d grown up in those rooms. He could raise his son there. They could bring more horses, really bring the place back to what it once was.
Kelly knew that. She’d seen it in Jace’s work. He didn’t repair and replace the broken fences and everything else like any a contractor. He did it as if he were the owner, as someone who loved what he was doing and who put his heart into it. Kelly felt like a thief taking that away from him. Maybe the error in the contract was there for a reason. She had other options. She could take the job in New York. Perry had said she belonged there. She was good at marketing. She’d get a corner office and a hefty salary that was secure. She could be content with that. She wouldn’t have to worry about sales and payroll or upkeep. She could convince the public to buy toasters or electronic gadgets. She could hawk lipstick or show the public how sexy a new car could be.
She could do all those things. She could be happy without the Kendall. It was Jace that she wanted. She didn’t think she could be happy without him.
* * *
THE NARROW ONE-LANE road that led to the Kendall was at least a mile-and-a-half long, too long for anyone to hear a car heading down it until it was upon the house. Both sides of the road were lined with the white 5-bar gate-style fencing that bordered the lawn on one side and provided access to the parking lot on the other. Kelly came to the door when she heard the heavy sound of engines and truck doors slamming in the driveway.
Her heart lifted when she thought Jace had returned. Through the panes in the door she saw a caravan of three pickup trucks, each attached to double-wide horse trailers. Stepping onto the porch, the heat hit her. A man dressed in jeans and a short-sleeved T-shirt widened his smile when he saw her.
It wasn’t Jace. He must have sent someone for the horses, although three trailers for two horses was overkill.
“Ms. Ashton?” one man questioned.
She nodded, coming down the steps. She no longer needed the cane for support.
“I’m Trey Demerest. I have some horses for you.”
He shoved some papers toward her. Kelly took them and glanced down. “I don’t understand,” she said.
“Mr. Jason Kendall said you board horses?”
Kelly stared at the papers, confused. Jace was gone for good. She couldn’t ask him about any of this.
“The paperwork is all in order,” the man said.
Kelly glanced up.
“Mr. Kendall said you weren’t available when he agreed to have us board the horses here, and that you would need to sign the papers, but we thought we’d bring them and you’d agree, we could leave them. He was sure you’d have no problem with anything.”
