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Sheila knew herself well enough to understand her guilt. Because of her uncharacteristic display of passion in the early hours of the morning, her subconscious was trying to soothe her by substituting love for lust. But Sheila wouldn’t allow herself that leisure. To consider what had happened in the Wilder mansion an act of love was pure fantasy, and the easy way out merely an appropriate, if false, excuse.
Sheila sighed to herself as she closed the garden gate. The problem was that there was no way she could avoid Noah Wilder or his enigmatic blue eyes. How could she hope to reopen the winery without his help? Unless his father came back to Seattle to take command of Wilder Investments, she was stuck with Noah. Just at the thought of seeing him again, her pulse began to race. Realistically she attempted to find an alternate solution to her problem, but found no way out of the inevitable conclusion: No one would lend her enough money to buy out Ben Wilder’s interest in Cascade Valley. And even if she were lucky enough to get another mortgage on the property, Wilder Investments was unlikely to sell.
Before opening the back door to the undamaged portion of the château, she took one final look at the blackened west wing. “There’s got to be a way to save it,” she muttered to herself before hurrying inside the house and letting the screen door slam behind her.
Chapter Six
The following Tuesday evening Sheila decided once again to attempt to assess the damage to the west wing of the manor building and try and come up with a temporary solution to the disrepair. She had spent the entire weekend and the last two evenings cleaning up that portion of the rubble that was not considered evidence in the ongoing police investigation. And yet, for all her efforts, the entire west wing was in shambles.
The late afternoon sun cast dark shadows on the charred walls of the château that had housed the commercial end of the winery. The living quarters, attached by a covered portico, hadn’t been severely damaged. Sheila looked at the building apprehensively. What would it take to save it? Though parts of the grayish stucco walls had blackened, the elegance of the architecture remained. Several panes from the narrow windows had shattered from the intensity of the heat and a couple of the cobalt-blue shutters hung at precarious angles from their original placement adorning the windows. But the walls of the building had remained intact, and even the gently sloping roof hadn’t sustained too much damage.
Sheila sighed deeply to herself. Daylight was fading, she had final term papers to grade, and she had to get Emily into bed. Right now she couldn’t spend any more time working on the winery.
“Emily,” she called in the direction of the duck pond, “come on, let’s get ready for bed.”
Emily emerged from a stand of trees near the edge of the pond and reluctantly obeyed her mother. When she was within shouting distance, she began to voice her disapproval. “Already? It’s not even nine o’clock.”
“I didn’t say you had to go to bed; I asked you to get ready,” Sheila pointed out.
Emily’s large green eyes brightened. “Then I can stay up?”
Sheila smiled. “For a little while. Right now, why don’t you take a shower and I’ll fix us some popcorn.”
“Let’s watch the movie,” Emily suggested.
“I don’t think so—not tonight. You still have school for another week.”
“But next week, when school’s out, I can stay up and watch the movie?”
“Why not?” Sheila agreed, fondly rumpling Emily’s dark auburn curls.
“Great.” Emily ran up the steps and flew through the front door leaving Sheila to wish that she had only half the energy of her eight-year-old daughter. From the exhausting work of the past few days, every muscle in Sheila’s body rebelled. She hadn’t realized what a soft job she had; teaching accounting to college students didn’t entail much physical exercise.
Sounds of running water greeted her when she finally got inside the house. She and Emily were “temporarily” camping out in the lower level of the house. It was the least damaged. Sheila wondered how long this temporary condition would continue. She had used some of her small savings to have the electricity reconnected and the plumbing repaired, but as to the rest of the house, she was still waiting for the insurance settlement. Fortunately she did have a few dollars left in the savings account, but she was steadfastly holding on to them. After paying the expenses of Oliver’s funeral she had less than a thousand dollars in the bank and hoped to stretch it as far as possible. With the coming of summer, she was out of a job until school started in the fall.
The interior of the château had suffered from the fire. As Sheila walked through what had been the living room toward the kitchen, she tried to ignore the smoke-laden lace draperies and the fragile linen wallpaper that had been water stained. Several of the broken windows were now boarded, and a fine, gritty layer of ash still covered all of the elegant European antiques and the expensive burgundy carpet. No amount of vacuuming seemed to lift the soot from the interior of the manor.
The kitchen was in better shape. Sheila had taken the time to scrub it down with disinfectant before painting all of the walls. Even the countertop had been repaired, as the heat of the blaze had loosened the glue and caused it to buckle. The hot corn was just beginning to pop when Emily hurried into the kitchen. She was still soaked and attempting to put her wet arms and legs through the appropriate holes in her pajamas.
“It’s easier if you dry yourself off first,” Sheila reminded her daughter.
“Aw . . . Mom . . .” Emily’s head poked through the soft flannel material, and her face, still rosy from the warm jets of shower spray, broke into a smile. “It’s just about ready, isn’t it?” she asked, running over to the popping corn.
“In a minute.”
Emily stood on first one foot and then the other, eyeballing the kernels as they exploded in the hot-air popper.
“What were you doing down at the duck pond for so long?” Sheila asked.
“Talking. . . . I think it’s done now.”
Sheila looked up from the pan of butter on the stove. “Talking? To whom? Did Joey come over?”
“Naw . . . Joey couldn’t come over . . . too much homework. Come on; let’s put the butter on the popcorn.”
Sheila’s dark brows came together. “If it wasn’t Joey, who were you talking to?”
Emily shrugged. “A man.”
