Author: Kristan Higgins

Parker looked up at the house and sighed. Time to get to work. There was Thing One, looking at her from the window— Hey! He’d taken the boards off the windows! Fantastic.

“Come on, girl,” she said to Beauty, standing up and heading up the short flight of stairs. The back of the house was barricaded by more junk—a table, boxes, a couple of plastic chairs, a tire—so she went around the front, the dog walking so close to her legs that Parker almost tripped.

She went inside and lurched to a halt.

“Holy halos, Thing One,” she breathed.

The hallway that yesterday she’d had to sidle down was completely empty. Wood floor. Grimy walls, a hole near the ceiling, but the entire hallway was cleared. She went down to the kitchen. “My God! You did all this?”

“Yeah,” he answered.

“You… Wow. This is amazing.”

The kitchen was much improved. There were still plastic boxes of who-knew-what, but the trash and cardboard and newspapers were gone. And it smelled much better, thanks to the salt air blowing through the windows.

She glanced out the window at the Dumpster that now graced the side of the house. It was already about a quarter full. “That’s a lot of crap,” she murmured.

“I kept some things I thought you might want. Over there on the table.”

She glanced over, then did a double take at the glass case on the floor by the wall. “Is that Apollo?”

James shrugged. “Think of him as mouse control. I already gave him one.”

“Really?”

“That’s what he eats.”

“Well, we can’t keep him in the kitchen. He gives me the willies.”

“Yes, Majesty. He can stay in my room.”

Whoops. She did sound a little imperial there. “That would be great. Thank you.”

“Here’s the deal,” James said. “The fridge works, but it needs to be scoured. It’s not the most efficient thing in the world, but it’ll keep things cold. The oven is shot and I think your mouse and all his friends live in there, so we should ditch it. My uncle knows a used one you can buy pretty cheap. The cupboards are bolted on, so if we tear them off, it’ll rip out chunks of the walls. The best bet is probably to clean and paint them. You’ll need a new subfloor and linoleum or tile in here, but the floors in the rest of the house are wood. Clean them up, slap on some polyurethane and you have character. New roof, new shingles, cut down some of the scrub around the house, fix the stairs to the dock and the real-estate agent says you might be able to pay off the back taxes and get a little besides.”

“Back taxes? And how much is a little?”

“Depends on the offer you get.”

Crikey. She didn’t really want to hear the actual figure. “Think I’ll have enough left over to buy a house in Rhode Island?”

“Not even close.”

A strand of panic laced through her. Parker took a deep breath. And another. Looked at Apollo, who stared back impassively.

You can only do what you can do, the Holy Rollers chimed. True enough.

She looked around the kitchen, which still had yards and yards of crap in it, then back at Thing One, who was looking at her, arms folded, face unreadable.

“Thank you, James,” she said.

His expression softened. “You’re welcome.”

His eyes were dark, dark brown. Best not to look for too long. She cleared her throat. “I guess I’ll get to work on my room.”

“You do that.”

She went down the hall, opened the door and got another shock.

The room was completely empty. All that stuff…the clothes and boxes and lamps and macramé and Christmas ornaments…was gone. The room was bigger than it had appeared when crammed with junk; the windows were open and somewhat battered screens were in the windows. It smelled clean. It was clean.

“Your bed is being delivered later on.” His voice made her jump. He’d followed her down the hall.

“What bed?”

He shrugged. “I figured you were too much of a princess to sleep on the floor, so I ordered you a bed. Nothing special. Just a frame and a box spring and mattress.”

“James…” Her cheeks burned, and she swallowed.

He smiled. Oh, that was dangerous.

Parker did not find Thing One particularly appealing, though she could recognize that he was attractive. He just didn’t do anything for her. No, those sulky good looks and arrogant bone structure…yawn. He looked like a Gucci model or a bored playboy. Not her type. Not at all.

Until he smiled. He had a wide, generous smile, almost too wide if there was such a thing, and his eyes crinkled far more than a young man’s should, and heck yeah, she felt it in Lady Land, uh-huh.

And given that they were apparently stuck together for the summer—and as James Cahill was the last guy she’d slept with—this was a very dangerous thing indeed.

CHAPTER NINE

TWO YEARS AGO, the thought of sleeping with Thing One had never crossed Parker’s mind.

Really.

Since the day she’d met him, Thing One had bugged her. Intellectually, she knew that it wasn’t his fault that Harry had sent him to the hospital the day Nicky was born. Just doing what the boss said, following orders, covering for Harry’s complete and utter lack of interest. Whatever the case, roughly five hours after she’d given birth, a stranger had been standing in her hospital room. Not her father.

She knew that Harry had viewed her decision to A) have Nicky and B) not marry Ethan as a personal slap in the face, but Parker had honestly thought that once he saw his first—possibly only—grandchild, he’d thaw. He’d never viewed her books as much of an accomplishment—well, she couldn’t fault him on that. But a baby, come on. Surely he’d be thrilled to meet his grandchild.

But no. He’d sent a stranger. The fact that the lawyer had thought to buy a stuffed animal only reinforced the fact that Harry had sent nothing but legal documents. No flowers—apparently one didn’t reward one’s wayward daughter for having a bastard child—and nothing for her beautiful, perfect, miraculous baby other than Nicky’s cut of the family trust. Thing One’s presence announced—shouted—the fact that her child wasn’t important enough for Harry to leave work…Harry, who once stopped a meeting with the head of Goldman Sachs because his nine-year-old daughter had come to his office to tell him she won the school spelling bee.

And then Thing One had kept on showing up, sent by Harry or accompanying Harry, and while Parker knew that it was at her father’s behest, it still drove her crazy. Obviously, Harry couldn’t bear to be around her, even with Nicky there. Thing One was at Nicky’s baptism, his first birthday, his second birthday. If Harry summoned the rest of the family to a party, which he did once a year—the better to rub their noses in his superior wealth—Thing One would be there, too.

That first day in the hospital, she’d almost felt sorry for him—he was so awkward and uncomfortable. But then he tried to cover for Harry, lying about how her father was so sorry he couldn’t come—as if Harry had ever apologized for anything. It made it worse, knowing that a stranger knew how low she was on her father’s list of priorities. And then, Thing One turned rather glib, a Harry Junior, almost, and that line, Parker, always lovely to see you, was so sarcastic. She knew she was nothing but another duty given to him by Harry.

Before long, Harry was calling Thing One “son” and inviting him to those pretentious wine-tasting dinners with his cronies or taking him out on Granddad’s wooden sailboat. Mostly, though, Parker was more irritated with herself than with Harry. He hadn’t sought out her company for years; why would he now? Her father had missed her graduation from Miss Porter’s, though he did make it to her graduation from Harvard and spent the time schmoozing senators and Kennedys. He never came to her book signings. Even when she signed at Barnes & Noble in New York City and there was a line out the door, he didn’t show up.

On the occasions that Harry did interact with her son, Parker had to admit, he wasn’t bad. He’d ask Nicky questions about what he wanted to be when he grew up—standard awkward adult fare—as compared with Gianni Mirabelli, who’d get down on his arthritic knees and pretend to be a horse or teach her son how to make the perfect meatball. But once, Parker came upon Harry and Nicky in the study, coloring, and a warm, hopeful feeling had rushed through her so fast, though what exactly she hoped for wasn’t clear.

A month later, she invited her father to come to Nicky’s graduation from swimming class; her boy had won the Eel Award for fastest swimmer. Wonder of wonders, Harry’s assistant called back to say yes, Mr. Welles would come, and Parker really thought maybe a new era was about to start, now that Nicky was old enough to warrant her father’s interest.

Harry didn’t show. But there was Thing One, expensive suit, calfskin briefcase, as if Nicky wouldn’t notice the difference.

Sleeping with Thing One? Please. It never even crossed her mind.

Until her cousin Esme’s wedding.

Harry had two older sisters, Louise and Vivian. They, in turn, had three daughters, Esme, Juliet and Regan. When Parker was young, the four cousins would play together during the summers at Grayhurst, unaware of the tension between the adults.

But then her parents divorced, and Althea took Parker to Colorado, only to send her back East for boarding school in Connecticut. During term breaks, Parker would sometimes stay with one of her aunts, who lived on the same street in giant homes that weren’t big enough for them, and listen to them complain about her father.

Harry was a legend on Wall Street. The Welles fortune, founded first on shipping, then on mills, had dwindled significantly in the 1960s as manufacturing went overseas. By the time Harry was a teenager, there was a little money, but they were hardly the Kennedys or the Hiltons. Enough for membership in the country club and college for Harry and his sisters, a very modest trust fund to get each one started as adults.

Then Harry decided to swing for the bleachers. He took his trust fund, asked his sisters if they wanted in—they declined; Harry was just out of Wharton and what did he know? Harry sold his car, schmoozed every client his father had, hit up every friend for a loan and stepped up to bat. He took every cent he’d managed to get his hands on and bought up stock from a little company that dealt with a technology no one had ever heard of.

Turned out Apple Computer did okay. Harry was featured on the cover of Forbes magazine, a baseball bat over one shoulder, a cocky grin on his handsome face and the headline Play Big or Go Home. Welles Financial, founded by Parker’s great-grandfather, went from a stodgy, trustworthy investment firm to an enormous force on Wall Street, and Harry became filthy rich.

His sisters had their modest inheritances; beyond that, if they wanted more—and they did—they had to come to Harry and present their request, be it jobs for their husbands or the money for an addition to keep up with the Joneses. Harry might or might not grant said request; his sisters hadn’t trusted him back in the beginning, and he made them pay, and they hated him for it. Didn’t stop them from asking, though.

And so Parker was an outsider, too, by association. Her cousins became an impenetrable clique, her aunts joined forces to disapprove of her, and Parker found herself thinking of them as the Coven. When she had to come to stay, Juliet, Regan and Esme made sure she was left out of the conversation, took potshots at Althea and her marriages, mocked Parker’s hair, clothes, shoes. Her aunts weren’t much better. Once, she overheard them discussing Althea’s latest divorce from Parker’s second stepfather, who was a lovely man; Parker had been devastated when he’d left. “Who’d want Althea and a sulky teenager?” Louise asked, laughing.

“Sulky’s the least of her problems,” Vivian said. “Juliet thinks she might be doing drugs.”