Roz Fox - A Secret To Tell You

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Epilogue

Dust flew everywhere as April Trent’s circular saw bit into the lath and plaster wall of the sixty-year-old Shenandoah Valley farmhouse she was remodeling. Seeing a flash of red and white in what should be empty space, she shut off her saw and set it down on the floor. Then she carefully pulled free a ragged chunk of wall. April shoved her safety glasses into her hair so she could clearly see the item wedged between two-by-four-inch studs.

Since being awarded her contractor’s license at twenty-four, this was the sixth Virginia home between Harrisburg and Staunton that she’d purchased and renovated. She always lived in the houses she was renovating; and had managed to accumulate a tidy nest egg. At thirty-one, she was a woman of independent means. Her first project she’d bought with a trust fund left by her paternal grandmother, Dixie. Early on, she’d struggled to be taken seriously in a largely male-dominated field. Now things were going well. No thanks, though, to her prominent family who, outside of her grandmother, saw her interest as merely an aberrant whim that would pass. Rather than being happy for her and wishing her well, they considered her an embarrassment. Especially her Dad and her brothers….

April plucked out a dusty, rectangular package wrapped in red-and-white checked oilcloth. Bits of fabric, brittle with age, broke off, even though she took care lifting it out. Her pulse beat faster. Generally all she found was crumbling grout, cobwebs or the skeletal remains of long-dead mice.

Coleman Trent, her lawyer daddy, might not be so quick to denigrate her profession if she found a cache of stolen money.

Excited, April carried her treasure around the plastic sheeting that cordoned off the kitchen, one of the rooms she’d completed. A corner nook near the window offered better lighting, and she identified the wrapping as oilcloth of a type used to line kitchen cupboards at the time this home was built. Twine holding the covering in place snapped easily.

Darn! Not money. Letters, bound together with a red satin ribbon. Letters addressed in precise script to a woman named Norma Marsh, at an address in France.

On a self-imposed timetable to complete the house but tempted nevertheless, April couldn’t resist tugging open the bow. She eased the top letter out of its envelope. The ink was faded and the handwriting looked like that of a man. Yes, it was signed Erge ben, Heinz. April was disappointed when she realized none of the letters were in English. No, they’d been written in German. She’d taken a smattering of college French and high school German, and from the little she could translate, it appeared Heinz was devoted to Norma.

April couldn’t help a poignant sigh as she refolded the letter. She’d love to pour a cup of coffee and take a break, try to decipher what—judging by the salutation—were obviously old love letters. But she needed to get that wall down and cleaned up, since she had carpet-layers scheduled the following week. Although she did most of the work alone, a few tasks she subcontracted out on an as-needed basis.

Leaving the letters, she returned to the dirty job at hand. By one o’clock she was exhausted. But the wall was down. Only the promise of coffee and a closer inspection of the letters gave her the final burst of energy she needed to dispose of debris and sweep up.

She was pleased with her morning’s work. Ripping out the wall had resulted in a lovely, large open room with a brick fireplace at one end. Homes built in the thirties and forties tended to have small, dark rooms. April liked open and airy.

Filthy, she should head straight for the spanking new shower she’d already added to the refitted bathroom. But coffee enticed, as did those letters.

April filled a mug with the coffee she’d brewed at breakfast and reheated it in the microwave. She’d learned to take her coffee black and strong. She carried it impatiently to the nook and removed the oilcloth around the letters. When she did, a passport fell out and so did a couple of grainy black-and-white snapshots and a pressed flower, a rose. Hesitantly April opened the old passport. A beautiful young woman with long blond hair styled in a manner reminiscent of 1940s movies, stared out. The well-traveled document had been stamped numerous times with dates ranging from the early- to mid-forties. London. Rome. Paris and other cities in France. April sipped the bitter coffee, and let her mind wander. Norma Marsh must have been a debutante. April was familiar with that lavish lifestyle, since her mother, Bonnie, was from a wealthy local family who still believed the best schools were abroad.

Feeling too much like a voyeur, April tucked the photographs into the passport without examining them and put back the fragile rose. These love letters belonged to a stranger. But she had to wonder how they’d come to be stuck between the walls. Was it accidental, or were they hidden on purpose? Who was Norma Marsh? Born in 1925, she’d be eighty-two now. Was she even alive? And if she was, would she want the letters back? So many possibilities ran through April’s mind.

Her doorbell chimed unexpectedly, startling her. She wasn’t expecting anyone, and the mysterious letters made her feel oddly vulnerable. Wiping nervous palms down her jeans, she tiptoed quietly to the arch. Through her large front window, she saw Eric Lathrop huddled on her front stoop. His topcoat sparkled silver from a light August rain that had begun to fall in the last half hour.

Eric was an eager-beaver reporter who wrote about politics for the local Turner County newspaper. His long-term sights were set on moving out of Virginia into the big-time D.C. political arena. Her family’s law firm, Trent and Trent, dabbled in local politics, which was how Eric had gained the attention of April’s parents and brothers.

Apolitical though she tried to be, she sporadically dated Eric to keep her parents from coming up with worse prospects. In truth, she had zero time for a real relationship. And Eric was pleasant enough. He was at least capable of interesting conversation, although at times April found him overbearing.

She gave a passing thought to dashing back to hide her recent discovery, even if it meant leaving Eric standing in the rain. His brashness meant he didn’t have much interest in what he called sentimentality—anything to do with emotion, in other words—and April felt oddly protective of these letters. Another part of her, though, longed to share her find with someone—anyone. That impulse won, and she crossed the room and threw open the door.

“What took you so long?” Eric stomped in, shaking raindrops from his buzz-cut sandy red hair. He left muddy footprints behind him.

His surly greeting killed whatever enthusiasm April had mustered for sharing her news. “I’m working,” she said, waving a hand toward the enlarged living space.

“So I see.” He grimaced at her dusty work boots and smudged safety goggles pushed back in April’s short, dark hair.

“To what do I owe this unscheduled visit?” she asked in an affected Southern drawl. She could count on sweet sarcasm annoying the hell out of Eric.

Today, however, he apparently had other things on his mind. “I ran into your brother Miles in town. Had lunch with him. Don’t ask me how, but he cadged two invitations to a black-tie fund-raiser. A ball being held by Quinn Santini a week from next Saturday.”