The Housekeeper's Daughter. Christine Flynn
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heard it from our cook yesterday.” Genuinely pleased, she shifted her attention toward the gazebo. She craned her neck, laying her hand delicately over her pearls. “Addie,” she called. “Congratulations on your engagement.”
Every one of the beautifully dressed women smiled at where she knelt in her serviceable denim and grass-stained boots.
With his back to everyone but her, the smile in Gabe’s eyes died completely.
“My congratulations, too,” Mrs. Kendrick added, sounding as sincere as she looked. “Your mother told me you haven’t set a date yet, and I know we’ll speak later, but I want you to know now that we’re going to miss you here.”
Addie wasn’t accustomed to being the center of attention. More familiar with being nearly invisible in a group like this, she’d been caught completely off guard at being included in it. Even for a few moments. That had to be the reason she felt as if her cheeks were flaming.
The only thing she could think to say was “Thank you,” before the women all turned their focus back to each other. She couldn’t think of anything to do, either, except jerk her self-conscious glance from Gabe’s when she realized it had caught on his once more.
Her cheeks were actually cool to her touch when she brushed the back of her hand over one and bent her head to her task once more. Yet, as she heard the women talking now about weddings past as they moved to where the ceremony itself would take place, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Gabe had been caught off guard, too.
She just had no idea what to make of the way his brow had pinched as he walked away and headed for the stables.
Chapter Two
G abe was panting hard when he grabbed the tail of his faded-gray Yale T-shirt, wiped the sweat from his face and planted his hands on his knees to catch his breath. The early-morning sun beat on the back of his head. The still-cool air fed his lungs.
He’d just shaved fifteen seconds off his fastest mile, and that after running his usual five.
There wasn’t a muscle in his body not screaming in protest.
He glanced at the timer on his watch again, took a deeper, slower drag of air.
He’d just beaten his personal best, but the satisfaction he should have felt simply wasn’t there. That disappointed him, too, considering that a quarter of a minute was the largest chunk he’d ever managed to cut off before. But he hadn’t set out to indulge his competitive streak. He’d practically run himself into the ground trying to escape the restiveness that had nagged him ever since he’d walked away from Addie yesterday.
He rose slowly, wiping his face again, and started walking up the oak-lined drive from the isolated country road. He wasn’t entirely sure what he’d felt when his sister had broken Addie’s news. He’d wanted to think it was only surprise, that he had simply been caught off guard because she’d given no hint of being involved with anyone.
The explanation was logical, which he always was. And rational, which he tried to be, too. Considering that he had known her since she was born, he tended to think of her simply as he saw her, and not as someone with a life beyond the boundaries of his family’s estate. It stood to reason that having her move outside that neat little box would jar him a little.
It bothered him that he would be so narrow in his view of someone, but the logic placated him. A little, anyway. It didn’t do a thing, however, to explain his edginess. Something under that unfamiliar discontent felt a little like disbelief. Or, slight. Or, maybe, it was…disappointment.
The thoughts tightened the muscles in his jaw as he glanced toward the main house with its three stories of windows and tall, curved portico. He would have thought she would confide something so important. She talked to him about everything that mattered to her. Or so he’d thought.
The party rental truck had arrived with tables, chairs and table settings for five hundred guests. The florist was there, too. Workers darted back and forth from the boxy white vehicles pushing dollies laden with cartons or bearing bouquets and sprays of white roses and gardenias. A crew placed garlands of flowers wrapped in ribbon around the front fountain. Another ant-like procession of personnel, all bearing centerpieces, headed around back to the white tent that had been set up for dining.
Gabe knew Addie wouldn’t be in the middle of all the activity. Her preparatory work was done, and it would be her nature to stay out of everyone’s way. Finding her on more than a hundred acres of hedges, wind breaks, and wooded land surrounding a private lake might have been nearly impossible, too, had it not been for the sound of the riding lawn mower. Following the muffled roar, he found one of the uniformed gardeners making a final pass over the three acres of lawn down by the tennis courts and asked him where he could find his boss.
Three minutes later Gabe found her behind a boxwood hedge near the garage. Dressed in her familiar denim, she was on her knees at the sprinkler controls.
The tall wall of foliage hid both her and the six-car garage from view of the activity taking place on the opposite side of the main house.
“It wouldn’t do to have the sprinklers go off and soak all the guests,” she said, sensing his presence before he could say a word. “Weddings are supposed to be memorable, but I don’t think that’s the sort of memory your mother would appreciate.”
Rising, she turned from her task, her glance moving from the V of sweat darkening the neck of his shirt to his loose gray running shorts. For the first time in memory, her smile lacked the easy welcome he had grown so accustomed to seeing.
“How was your ride yesterday?” she asked, sounding more at ease than she looked. “I hear you took out the new stallion. He’s magnificent, isn’t he?”
The latest addition to his father’s show stable was indeed an incredible animal. Addie could probably discuss its pedigree and prizes equally as well as she could the ancestry and awards of his mother’s Victorian roses. If something was alive, she was interested in it. But all he wanted to discuss was the little matter she’d failed to mention on her own.
“Why didn’t you tell me you’re engaged?”
The question didn’t seem to surprise her. It was the accusation behind it that seemed to throw her a little.
It threw him, too.
Confusion entered her dark eyes. “Because it isn’t the sort of thing we usually discuss.”
“We talk about a lot of things, Addie. When I mentioned that Olivia said you had news, you only told me about your project. Something like this seems a little more important. Don’t you think?”
“They’re both important to me.” She still couldn’t identify what she’d seen in his eyes yesterday. But the intensity of it had left her with a knot in her stomach the size of an amaryllis bulb. “But you brought up the research,” she reminded him, feeling that knot tighten. “There wasn’t time to talk about anything else, anyway.”
“You could have mentioned the other first.”
“I suppose I could have,” she conceded, though it wasn’t something she’d felt at all compelled to bring up with him. “I was just more interested in talking to you about the project. We’ve never talked about my personal life.”
Over the years, she and Gabe had talked about everything from pets to his political ambitions. Other than for immediate family, they’d rarely talked about their personal relationships. She had always known who he was dating, though. All she had to do was pick up the society page or listen to gossip among the staff to know who he was seeing, or if he was too busy to be seeing anyone at all. She didn’t believe for a moment that he was interested in her as anything other than a friend and sounding board, but if he’d wanted to find out anything about her, the stable master or the chauffeur were as good a source as Olivia and Ina, the downstairs maid. Gossip was practically a sport among certain members of the staff.
He must have understood her