Cynthia Reese - What the Heart Wants

And he would have if he’d ever seen her before. One look, and he would always remember that face.

Beside him, Cecilia was still nearly swooning over the house, despite its disheveled appearance. “In the same family! All this time? It looks like something off one of those fantastic animated films! When was it built?”

Kyle yanked his attention back to the house and Cecilia. “In 1888—well, that was when it was finished. It was built by a wealthy timber-and-railroad baron as a present for his wife—”

The other woman must have heard him, because she threw back her head and laughed. “A timber baron? A present for his wife? Yeah, right. That’s exactly how it went.”

Cecilia turned to her. “So it wasn’t like that?”

The redhead shrugged as she closed the gap between them. “Ambrose Shepherd was a carpetbagger born to a shopkeeper in New Jersey, and he was determined to get rich. He came south at the right time and made pots of money by getting timber down the Altamaha River, but he was no baron. He married a country girl from Darian, Georgia, during his timber days, and then moved her up here when the railroads started expanding. He always had his eye on making money, Ambrose did, and when he saw that the railroads would make the river obsolete, he invested in the Central Railroad. But when he got to Lombard to make sure the railroad expansion was going like he wanted it to, nobody would receive his country-girl wife. So he decided he’d build the biggest, showiest house Lombard had ever seen.”

Cecilia’s attention was rapt. Kyle started to interrupt, to say that wasn’t exactly historically accurate, and that he’d never heard this version of the story before, when she burbled, “And did they receive her then?”

The redhead’s eyebrows lifted. “It got the society ladies in the door, all right—but then they went away and snickered over the idea of anybody spending ten thousand dollars on a house. Not to mention having two indoor bathrooms, or the scandalous idea of a billiard table in one’s very own home, and, well...it turned out about how you’d expect.”

Cecilia seemed a little crushed that this wasn’t the happy ending she was primed for. “Oh. How sad.”

“No, it wasn’t.” The redhead’s mouth curved in a wide, satisfied smile. It lit up her face and made her seem friendly and approachable, despite her earlier crankiness. “Davinia Shepherd had no use for the society ladies, and she was pleased as punch that they weren’t bothering her.”

Now Kyle cleared his throat. “I’m Dr. Kyle Mitchell, a history professor at the college and president of Lombard’s historical society. And you are...”

“Allison,” she said, offering her hand.

Kyle took it, liking the way her handshake was firm and professional. “That’s, ahem, an interesting retelling, Allison,” he said. “I’ve never heard that version before. How do you know so much about Belle Paix?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Family stories.”

“Oh, gossip, then. I thought you had access to some primary sources that I wasn’t familiar with—”

“Not gossip.” Now the smile retreated, and Allison’s chin lifted. “I guess you historical types would call it oral history. They’re the same tales my grandmother told me, the ones her mother told her—passed down. Plus there’s a set of journals.”

“Journals?” Kyle’s brain buzzed as the possibility of a new, undiscovered set of turn-of-the-century documents brought up all sorts of ideas. “You have journals?”

But Allison pushed past him and opened Belle Paix’s wrought-iron gate. “Sure, Davinia had to do something with her time once she married money and became a lady of leisure. She’d grown up dirt poor, with ten brothers and sisters, so she was used to hard work. But Gran’s made it clear that the journals are private, for family only. And as for how I know about the house, I grew up here.”

The gate clanged shut, and Allison strode up the walk away from them. Halfway up, she paused and turned around.

“I don’t mean to be standoffish, and it wouldn’t bother me at all, but Gran doesn’t much care for trespassers. You can take all the pictures you want from the street, but she’d be mad if you put so much a pinky toe this side of the fence, okay?”

Allison didn’t wait for their reply. Instead, she continued up the walkway, bounced up the steps, paused at the dark mahogany double doors with their arched glass inserts, and swung one open. It soon thudded shut behind her, leaving Kyle tantalized and frustrated. He’d not gotten so much as a peek inside the house, and it didn’t seem as if that would change anytime soon.

* * *

ALLISON PEEKED OUT the door’s beveled glass pane and saw to her satisfaction that Kyle Mitchell and his historical house fans were staying put on the street side of the fence. Good. She wouldn’t have to confess to Gran that she’d let an interloper in, although he’d seemed respectful enough.

He’d surprised her when he’d said was a professor. Obviously, professors could come in all shapes and sizes, but Kyle Mitchell landed closer to the more outdoorsy and overtly masculine end of the spectrum than the tweed-jacket stereotype. Dark blond hair cut short, tanned, with a big wide smile...

She squinted to spy some more. He was tall—a good head taller than her, so that meant he had to be well over six feet, since she was five foot seven. And yeah, he was wearing a jacket, but it was a navy one that fit him well.

A flying fur bullet zoomed from behind her, probably from the formal front stairs, and landed at her feet, yowling. Allison jumped, still not entirely used to Cleo’s ninja ways. The Siamese wound around Allison’s bare legs, then must have realized those legs didn’t belong to Gran. She backed up, sat down and glared at Allison.

Allison let her heart settle into a more predictable rhythm before attempting to pet the cat, which skulked backward.

“Cleo...” She knelt down and crooned, the way Gran always did with the stubborn feline. “It’s been a month and a half. You have to trust me. I’ll get Gran back home as soon as I can.”

But the cat, from all appearances, remained unconvinced. She turned and stalked off toward the dining room, her seal point tail hiked high with disdain. She would accept food and water from Allison, and sometimes, when she got desperate, would snuggle up at the foot of Allison’s bed. But that was only after she’d kept her awake half the night, yowling piteously for Gran.

“Hey! I miss her, too!” Allison called after the cat.

Good grief. I’m getting more and more like Gran every day. This house will send me to the loony bin.

No point in wasting time wondering when insanity would make its appearance. Allison had planned to rip out the carpet in the dining room this morning, and she still had time to get it done before her afternoon visit with Gran.

The carpet was the reason Gran was in rehab to begin with. The seam at the dining room and library had raveled, and Gran had caught her shoe in it.

Allison crossed the length of the long hall, the formal stairs rising above her in a graceful curve. She stood in the dining room doorway, surveying what had to be done.

Before she could rip out the carpet—a Mamie Eisenhower pink design, which Gran had laid in the dining room and library in the early 1950s, after she’d married Pops—Allison had to move a few things.

Starting with Cleo, who’d taken a seat on the dining table and was grooming one long, slender hind leg. The feline paused, gave Allison a mild hiss with no bite to it and succumbed to the inevitable—she knew she wasn’t supposed to be on the table. That taken care of, Allison went upstairs to change into jeans and a T-shirt, determined to get the carpet ripped out before she visited Gran.