Her Husband-To-Be. Leigh Michaels
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met once. I went to visit her in the care center a couple of weeks before she died, and I took Deke with me.”
Funny, Danielle thought, that the whole mess really stemmed from a casual trip to the lake. They’d been on their way out of town for an afternoon’s swimming when she’d remembered Miss Fischer and told Deke she’d promised to stop by to see her for a moment. And he’d come inside with her rather than wait in the June heat.
Fifteen minutes, that was all. A quarter of an hour in which he hadn’t even been trying to captivate Miss Fischer—which said something about Deke Oliver’s charm. He didn’t have to try.
He’d stepped outside the room to allow Danielle a private goodbye. She hardly remembered what Miss Fischer had said, for the words had been unremarkable. Something about what a nice young man he was, a very special young man, but that obviously Danielle already knew that. And Danielle had hugged her and said, “Oh, yes. A very special man indeed.”
And from that tiny, careless comment, Miss Fischer—who despite all appearances had been a romantic marshmallow deep inside—had constructed the picture of a couple in love, a couple who simply hadn’t yet told anyone else about their feelings. A couple who’d need a place to live and to establish a family. And so, without a word to anyone else of her intentions, she’d called in her lawyer and changed her will....
And the fallout of that decision, Danielle thought wearily, was still drifting over them, with no end in sight.
It was nearly midnight when the last party left the Willows and Danielle could lock up the restaurant and leave. Harry Evans was still in the office, ostensibly ordering the extra supplies they’d need to have on hand when the strawberry festival began. Danielle knew, however, that he was killing time, waiting around as he always did on the nights it was her turn to close.
She stopped in the office doorway to put on her jacket. “Don’t work too late, Dad,” she said with only a faint tinge of irony
Harry shuffled his papers into the desk drawer. “Is it closing time already? I might as well walk out to the lot with you.”
Danielle could almost have recited the words along with him. She didn’t bother to argue with him anymore. If it made him feel better to stay around to keep a protective eye on his baby and then walk her to her car—well, at least staying up late didn’t hurt him the way moving tables did. Harry could sleep well into the morning.
Which was more than Danielle could. She’d have only a few hours to call her own tomorrow, and in that narrow span of time, she’d have to plan the entire weekend How many guests would be coming in on Friday? How long would they stay? What kind of staples had the Jablonskis left in the kitchen and what would she need to buy?
Despite the hour, the downtown square was still washed with light when Danielle drove through. The shop windows lining the streets glowed softly, showing off merchandise even though there was no one just now to see it. In some of the apartments above—remodeled in the past few years from dark, low-rent rooms into larger, more elaborate homes—windows gleamed. And soft floodlight spilled over the courthouse in the center of the square, making it look even more like a daintily iced wedding cake.
Danielle tried not to look up at Deke’s apartment. But it was hard to avoid; it was on the very corner of the square, so rather than just a narrow frontage, his apartment had windows down the entire length, as well.
They were dark, which was no surprise. What had she expected anyway—that he’d be up late pacing the floor and worrying about the Merry Widow? “Maybe fretting because I’ve taken on so much responsibility and he’s doing nothing,” she jeered at herself.
But if the square was full of light, two blocks away the Merry Widow was another story. Danielle had never seen the place so utterly black, its windows emptily reflecting the pale moonlight.
She’d intended to put her car away in the carriage house, but the walkway between the buildings was even darker than the house itself. At the last minute, she left the car under the porte cochere. But the key Deke had passed on to her didn’t fit the side door, so—grumbling under her breath—she walked around toward the back porch.
High above her was one faint gleam from a tiny attic window that the Jablonskis had no doubt overlooked. The feeble light somehow made the rest of the house seem even darker.
She pushed the back door open. Even though she’d braced herself for the squeal of the hinges, a cold prickle ran up her spine at the sound. Deke hadn’t been far wrong when he said the place would make a great haunted house.
“What a comforting thought,” Danielle told herself wryly. “Why don’t we see if we can conjure up a few spirits while we’re at it?”
There was enough moonlight to guide her once her eyes had grown accustomed to the dimness. She’d wait till tomorrow, she decided, to search out the light switches. And she’d run out to the hardware store for some night-lights, too. How had the Jablonskis expected their guests to get around an unfamiliar house in total darkness?
She reached the top of the stairs and paused. She should have looked around earlier; she hadn’t given a thought till just now about which room she should use. The Jablonskis’ quarters, she supposed. She’d never been there, but she’d heard Kate talking about fixing up the attic into a private suite so all the more accessible bedrooms were available to guests.
But it hadn’t occurred to her to reconnoiter this afternoon. She’d only been thinking of getting away from Deke and that half-mocking smile, that slow and lazy voice. You utterly amaze me, Danielle....
She heard a creak from the front of the house, then something that sounded like a long sigh. She froze for an instant and then shook her head and smiled. In a house the size and age of the Merry Widow, creaks would be a dime a dozen And the sigh was easily explained; the wind had picked up throughout the evening and there was probably no shortage of leaky windows.
She turned toward the set of stairs, only a little narrower and plainer than the main ones, that led up to the attic. She’d been there only once before, on her first inspection tour after Miss Fischer’s will was read, and her main impression had been of a single enormous room, full of slanted walls and tiny odd-shaped windows, under the high-peaked roof The room had been lit only by a few bare bulbs, and there were plenty of boxes stacked haphazardly, most of them clustered in the center around the head of the stairs, as if they’d simply been dumped.
But the huge room Danielle climbed into was nothing at all like the attic she remembered. The basics were still the same; the ceiling soared just as high in the center, and the outer walls still sloped sharply except in the corner tower room.
But there the resemblance ended. The boxes were gone and bright rugs were scattered over the scarred floor. Here and there she thought there was a new wall, blocking off part of the enormous room to create at least the illusion of private space.
Not that she could see much. The only source of light, no doubt the cause of the pale glow she’d seen from outside, was a single small bulb above what looked like a built-in bar in a far corner of the room. No wonder the Jablonskis had missed it; it was so dim that in daylight it probably didn’t show up at all.
She was too tired even to walk across the room to turn the light off. She certainly wasn’t going to bother to unpack, she decided, or to look for clean sheets. She’d just collapse atop the Jablonskis’ bed, and in the morning she’d take care of the details.
Or at least she’d get started.
CHAPTER THREE
DANIELLE was used to waking to sunshine streaming through the wide windows of her father’s bungalow. Even on overcast days when there wasn’t enough light to rouse her, her internal alarm clock always kicked in, making sure she didn’t oversleep.
But on her first morning at the Merry Widow, nothing worked right. There was no sunshine, the Jablonskis had not only selected the darkest attic corner for their bedroom,