“I’ll get you back to the front door,” she said. “Unless you’d like a tour of the rest of the house.” She paused and let innuendo fall from her words.
Dillon cleared his throat.
Last thing I need is for Casterline to think I’m after one of his little girls
. “Um, no, just the front door would be fine. Thank you.”
She shrugged and tucked her hand through the crook of his elbow just the same. “Suit yourself. Maybe next time.”
They paused on the front porch, watching as splatters of rain began to fall. Dillon checked his clipboard and was about to take off when a beat-up Dodge Shadow rattled by the house and pulled into the driveway next door. He raised his eyebrows as the car belched to a stop.
That guy selling something? Or just lost
? He couldn’t imagine a vehicle that looked more out of place on Regency Way and meant to say so when Willow whistled at the tall, slim man that unfolded himself from it.
“Hi, Taz!”
She knows him?
The guy didn’t say much, just “Hello yourself” as he flashed a grin from a full-bearded face. He loped up the steps of number Fifty-Nine, a slightly smaller version of the brick estate where Dillon still stood, and disappeared through the front door.
“He lives there?”
Willow nodded. “That’s the Majors’ place. They’ve been there forever, twenty years at least. They were one of the first homes in this development.” She sighed. “That was Taz. He’s the youngest.” Her eyes cut back toward the driveway and she ran a finger along her bottom lip. “God, I always had such a crush on him.”
Dillon stifled a laugh.
Who didn’t you have a crush on?
“Then there’s Will, Aaron, and Jack. Four boys. Jack’s the oldest. He’s…God, probably over thirty now.”
“What kind of name is Taz?”
“Short for Tanzili. A family name, I think.” Willow’s voice dropped a little. “We used to see them a lot, when we were kids. My two older brothers played ball all the time with Jack and Aaron.” She shrugged. “After Mrs. Major died, things changed.”
Dillon shifted his feet, uncomfortable.
“She was so nice,” Willow went on before he could make a move to leave. “Everyone on the block liked her. She was the one, you know, who’d always be home during the day, who’d be making cookies for all the kids. She helped us build a fort in their backyard once. And she had the coolest stories about animals and princesses and the stars and stuff.
“When she got cancer, all the boys just fell apart. Taz and Jack especially. She died—I guess it’s been four or five years ago, now. Mr. Major changed after that, got really depressed and wouldn’t talk to anyone for a while. It’s too bad.”
Dillon shook his head. He supposed everyone had sadness in their past, troubled memories that bided their time and rattled the bars of their cages occasionally to let you know they were still there. “Well, guess I’ll be going.”
Willow slid her gaze from Dillon’s brows to the tips of his work boots. “I’ll see you around,” she said. “Next week?”
Dillon nodded instead of answering. Crossing the yard in a few giant steps, he leaped into his truck. He shook the water from his hair and stuffed the damp paperwork into his folder.
Damn. Women get bolder and bolder these days. What happened to a little bit of subtlety?
He wiped his face. Best thing he could do was put the truck in gear and leave, pronto. He ran his fingers over the gearshift. It wasn’t Willow’s overt sexuality that had his pulse racing. It was the way she reminded him of someone else. The way she’d not only started up the rattling of a cage but nearly torn the lock right off it.
Maggie, I’m sorry. I didn’t know he was in the house. I swear I didn’t…
Dillon shook his head, hard. He glanced at his watch and then up at the windshield, where rain now beat mercilessly. With this weather, there was no way he’d be able to start on the Mercer property across town. One thing about the landscaping business, you couldn’t outsmart nature or make deals with the devil, no matter how many deadlines awaited you. He turned the key and the truck’s engine roared to life.
Back to the office,
he thought.
At least there I can catch up on some invoices and make some calls
. And maybe if he got far enough away from this house, and the young woman standing on its front porch, he could forget about the redhead from the past she reminded him of.
He reversed direction and headed for the highway. He turned up the radio and tried to sing along. He counted the seconds between thunder and lightning. He listened to a commentary on the sorry state of the Red Sox. But none of it worked. Despite his best efforts, Dillon’s mind returned again and again to his stepsister and the last time he’d seen her, with anger flashing in her eyes and that hair flying everywhere. As if even the ends of her curls radiated emotion. Now, even years removed from the moment, it caused him such guilt and regret that he had to remind himself that it hadn’t been his fault. Not really. Her illness, her operation, her loss had stemmed from someone else’s mistake.
But I could have stopped it
, he thought.
If only I’d known, I could have stopped it from happening in the first place. I could have saved her, protected her the way I was supposed to. Blood related or not, brothers are supposed to do that for their little sisters.
No, Dillon hadn’t been the real villain all those years ago, but he’d stood by while it happened. In Maggie’s mind, he knew, that was the same.
2:00 p.m.
Maggie stared out the back window of her workroom as she chewed on a thumbnail. The heads of her poor flowers bowed under the storm, petals damp and crushed, leaves lost. She wished she could hold up their tender blossoms and funnel them strength to withstand the wind and the rain. Hell, she wished she could do that for herself, right about now. She looked back at her desk and the list of landscaping businesses that Neve had found online. Ninety-eight listed just in the city of Boston. That didn’t include any of the suburbs.
Ninety-eight
? Maggie wanted to cry.
She sank to a seat and drummed her fingers on the desk. Her gaze fell on a bright red Christmas card, one she’d pulled from the back of a file drawer the other day. The scrawl inside she knew. Too well. He’d signed her birthday cards with that same squiggle, autographed the tree fort they built together one summer, forged a note to school so she didn’t get in trouble when she skipped and went to the mall. She’d recognize that handwriting anywhere, the way it swooped to the left at the beginning of words and tailed off at the end to nothing. A lump grew in Maggie’s throat until she had to turn away to draw a breath.
I should have kept in touch with him. It would make the next twenty-four hours a lot easier.
This holiday card from almost six years ago was the only reminder she still held of her stepbrother. She couldn’t believe she’d kept it after all this time, but it must have gotten stuck in a box of papers from college. She remembered the anger, the sadness, with which she’d first read it, tracing the words that wished her a merry winter season.
Does he think this makes up for what happened that night? Does he think it changes what I lost?
What the doctors had taken that long-ago day had healed. Only a small scar remained on her abdomen. But different scars marked her soul now. Deeper ones. Because the day Maggie left the hospital, she’d emerged as someone different, someone less whole, less sure, less herself.
She knew Dillon meant well. He probably wanted to show her he still cared, still felt sorry, still wanted to make her world right. But years of silence couldn’t be mended by a card in the mail.
She turned it upside down and stuck it under some junk mail. Maggie forced herself to remember what her mother had said about the name of his business. Something that rhymed. Or something that, for whatever reason, seemed silly to Hillary. Not a good name for a business. Maggie tucked her hair behind both ears. Okay, she knew her mother well enough to weed out a few. Pencil in hand, she went down the list, crossing out as she went and hoping against hope that she wasn’t deleting the very business she needed to call.
A-Plus Lawn Care
Beautiful Greens
Smith and Sons Landscapers
Maggie laid down her pencil and recounted. Eighteen names now had black lines through them. “Eighteen? That’s it? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
There’s got to be a better way
. If Dillon was working in Boston, then maybe he was listed in the yellow pages. Or the white pages. Or something. If he was such a hotshot businessman, maybe she could find some mention of him in an article or a link on someone’s website.
Christ, maybe he has his own website
. It was worth a try, anyway.
She started up her computer and waited for the screen to kaleidoscope into view. Steadying her gaze on the screen, she opened a search engine.
Dillon Murphy
, she typed with trembling fingers. Thirty seconds later she realized she was holding her breath.
Thirteen possible matches. Maggie almost didn’t want to look. Running a finger down the screen, she eliminated the first ones inside her head.
“Local mountain biker Dillon Murphy advanced in yesterday’s race…”
“Dillon Murphy slam dunks to win the Student-Faculty Scholarship game…”
“Dr. Dillon Murphy presents her findings on molecular research…”
“Dillon Murphy named Boston’s Young Entrepreneur of April...”
Maggie stopped. She read the last one again and then clicked on the link.
Dillon Murphy, owner of Spectacular Scapes, was named the Boston area’s Young Entrepreneur of April. The program honors the city’s brightest new businessmen and women who have demonstrated outstanding vision, leadership, achievement, and social responsibility. Murphy is responsible for the transformation of lawns and landscapes in and around the city…
As Maggie finished the brief article, perspiration broke out on her upper lip.
Spectacular ‘Scapes, huh?
Maggie grabbed Neve’s list. There it was, close to the bottom.
She looked back at the article. Was it possible? Had her stepbrother really become an award-winning businessman? She stared at the screen, as if Dillon himself might glide through it. One leg bounced up and down as nerves took over, and she pressed a palm against her knee, trying to still it.
Only one way to find out…
Reaching for her cell phone before she lost her nerve, she dialed eleven numbers and closed her eyes.
The phone began to ring.
Maggie almost hung up. If Spectacular ‘Scapes was in fact Dillon’s business, if he answered the phone himself, what was she going to say after all this time? How was she going to dance around everything that had happened, all the years that had sailed by since the last time she’d seen him? Her thumb moved to cut the connection.
I should think of something reasonable and convincing
, she thought.
I should call back when I have a plan
. She didn’t think blurting out
Hi, Dillon, I know it’s been a while but do you think you could loan me fifteen thousand dollars?
would be her best opening.
The line beeped, and a recording came on and saved her. “Hi, you’ve reached the office of Spectacular ‘Scapes. Please leave us a message, and we’ll get back to you. Have a great day.”
Maggie frowned. It wasn’t Dillon’s voice—it wasn’t a male voice at all—but she supposed that didn’t mean anything. Could be a secretary, or a co-worker. She hung up without saying a word.
Now what? She couldn’t just leave a message. What if it wasn’t him after all? What if he didn’t return her call? What if he waited until Monday to check his voicemail? She needed to talk to her stepbrother as soon as possible. Really, she needed to see him, to explain face to face what she was asking him for and why.
Eyes back to the clock. Two-fifteen and counting.
No other choice
, the voice inside her head began chirping.
If you can’t reach him on the phone, then you have to go to Boston and try to find him.
“I can’t,” she said aloud.
You have to
, the voice answered.
Maggie rubbed her temples as the headache began to win again. She stared at the dots of lights behind her eyelids and thought she could probably count thousands. Fifteen thousand, four hundred and eighty, to be exact. She peeled open her eyes and ran a finger down Neve’s list, checking the address. If she got in her car now and sped the sixty miles north, she could be in Boston by four o’clock or so. Maybe sooner.
But he’s not in his office
, the voice reminded her.
Where will you find him? What if you
can’t
find him? What if he’s done for the day? What if he’s on vacation for the next two weeks?
“Well, someone must be there,” she said. “Right?”
But she didn’t know if that was right at all. She didn’t know if landscapers kept regular hours. She didn’t even know if they kept regular offices, or just machines in empty rooms that picked up calls while their owners planted flowers and shrubs.
“Damn!” She slapped the flat of her hand against the desk. Why did she have to do this all by herself? Why couldn’t she think of one other person besides poor Neve to help her shoulder the efforts?
Maggie froze as an idea struck her. “Eden Fife,” she said out loud. “Jesus, why didn’t I think of her sooner?” For the last year and a half, Maggie’s former college roommate had manned the phones at one of Boston’s top law firms. She was also a member of a half-dozen social groups in the city. Maggie grabbed her cell phone again.
If anyone can help me find Dillon, it’s Eden. That woman has connections most people only dream of
.
She thumbed down through her phone book, hoping she hadn’t deleted Eden’s work number in some mad fit of clearing out last month.
Eden — Home.
Eden — Work.
Thank God
. She dialed and prayed it wasn’t lunchtime or quitting time or some other kind of formal-office-ritual time up there.
Please answer. Please
.
“McGrath, Lyons, and Yearwood.” The voice, crisp and professional, with just a hint of Virginia gentility, picked up on the second ring.
“Eden? It’s Maggie.”
The voice sucked in a breath. “Mags? Really?”
“Really.”
“I haven’t heard from you in
ages
. Y’all all right down there?” Though Eden had lived in the north for over ten years, at times her Southern drawl still dripped like honey. To Maggie it spoke of times gone by, of carefree college days, of endless nights of studying and pizza breaks and swearing
never again
over the guys who broke their hearts.
“Hi. Yeah, I’m all right.” She tried to remember how to have a normal conversation before leaping into desperation.
“Well, it’s been too long. I miss you. What are you doing with yourself these days?”
“Um…surviving.”
Eden paused and Maggie could almost see her friend cocking her head to one side. Blonde hair would fall like a curtain across her face as she weighed the words. “What is that supposed to mean? Are you in some kind of trouble?”
Maggie took a deep breath. “Actually, I’m trying to find someone up there in Boston. I was hoping you could help me.”
Eden laughed, a throaty sound that made Maggie long for days of margarita-drinking, whistling at the guys playing football outside their window, studying until midnight and then driving to the harbor just to listen to the waves.
“You are too much, Mags,” she said. “It’s a guy, isn’t it? You met a guy and he hasn’t called you back and so you want me to track him down. Sure, I’ll do it.”
I wish
, Maggie thought. “It’s not a guy,” she said. “Not the way you mean, anyway.”
“So what exactly are we talking about? Who do you need to find?”
Maggie said the name she hadn’t spoken aloud in years. “Dillon Murphy.”
“Your stepbrother?”
She expected Eden’s surprise. In all the years of their friendship, she’d mentioned Dillon exactly twice: once before the operation, and once eighteen months later, after breaking up with the one man she’d wanted to spend her life with. Both times, sobs had virtually obscured her words, so she wasn’t sure Eden remembered much of what she’d said. But the agony, the blame, the heartbreak behind the tears—that had been pretty apparent, Maggie guessed.
“Mind if I ask why?’
“How much time do you have?”
“Not enough, from what it sounds like. Okay, save the details for later. How soon do you need to find him?”
“As soon as I can. I’m pretty sure he owns a landscaping business up there. Spectacular ‘Scapes. I called, but all I got was the machine.” She took a deep breath. “Listen, I’m going to drive up. Today. I’ve got to figure out where to find him. If he’s not in his office, I don’t have any idea where to start looking.”
“I’ll see what I can find out.” Eden rustled some papers in the background. “When will you be here?”
“Maybe four or so? If traffic isn’t too bad.”
“Call me when you get into town. And I’ll call you back if I hear anything between now and then.” Eden paused. “Are you sure there isn’t anything else I can do to help? Do you need money?”
Maggie shook her head, surprised that it had taken her friend nearly ten minutes to guess the truth. “No. But thanks for offering.” Though Eden worked as executive assistant to one of the top defense attorneys in the city, Maggie was sure that her posh little apartment, designer clothes, and the zippy red sports car she drove more than sucked dry her weekly paycheck. No, finding Dillon was the most practical answer. She could only hope.
*
Dillon swung his pick-up truck into the space marked “Reserved” and dodged raindrops on his way inside the office. Flipping on the overhead light, he settled himself into the chair behind his computer. Two of his guys had stopped by, judging by the paperwork lying on his desk and the half-full pot of coffee. He poured himself a cup and stuck it in the microwave to warm up. Scanning his appointment book, he mentally rearranged the jobs for sunnier days.
Rained more this month than any other June I can remember
, he thought. When he was a kid, summers seemed to stretch out with sunshine from dawn to dusk. Any rain that passed through came and went in the time it took to run inside and have a snack at the kitchen table. He ran a finger down the list of jobs he’d had to reschedule just this month: six. Not good. Fatigue, helped by the previous night’s tequila shots, pinched the back of his neck and squeezed his temples. Dillon flopped into a slouch and closed his eyes for a minute.
The memory slipped inside his mind’s eye before he could shoo it away.