OVER HER DEAD BODY: The Bliss Legacy - Book 2 (4 page)

“She’s not here.” She let go of the bag and a lungful of air at the same time, as if the dragging effort had exhausted her; then she planted the rake head at her front feet and rested both palms on the handle’s tip. “You selling something?” She eyed his sleek car. “We already got a vacuum cleaner.”

Gus damn near smiled. He’d been taken for a lot of things in his life—most of them uncomplimentary—but a vacuum cleaner salesman wasn’t one of them. “No.” He walked back down the stairs. “I’m not selling anything.” He gestured to the orange bag. “Want some help?”

“Sure, thanks. Can you take it to the end of the driveway?”

“Done.”

When he got back from his chore, he asked, “When will, uh, Sister Farrell be coming back?” Or maybe it was Sister Keeley. How the hell would he know? He hadn’t been near anything religious since his grandmother baptized him from her deathbed. They’d been with her for a couple of years at the time. He remembered her praying, begging God to “take and keep” him and his little sister. For days after, he’d lived in terror God would do what she’d asked.

In the years following her death, he wished He had.

“Sister?” The girl frowned. “Oh, right, she’ll be back—” She stopped talking and pointed. “There she comes now. She took some junk to the recycling station.” Holding out her hand, she said, “My name’s Bridget, by the way. Thanks for the help.” She headed back up the driveway.

A pickup truck, in as bad a condition as the house, pulled up behind his Jag, and a woman got out and came toward him. While she eyed him as if he were a serial killer, he took a good look himself.

She had a yellow scarf tied around her hair, but it didn’t stop coils of red curls from springing loose, some of them sticking to her flushed face—her dirty, flushed face.

As for the rest, his practiced male rating system said … a definite so-so. Average height, average face. Weight? Non-assessable, due to camouflage by a pair of jeans that gave new meaning to the word roomy. He glanced down and his eyebrows shot up. She was wearing thick gray sport socks—over her shoes. Gus had never seen anyone quite like her.

He met her eyes and saw her lips turn up into a quick, then-gone smile.

“I’m guessing you’ve figured out I’m not coming back from a shift at Hooters.” Her eyes, an oddly dark shade of blue, were filled with wry humor. And challenge.

His gaze dropped to her feet. Hers followed.

“Most people wear socks inside the shoe,” he said.

She took a step back, lifted and turned a sock-encased foot. “The truck’s got a north wind coming from the floor board somewhere. My toes were cold. The socks were handy.”

“Ah.” He nodded as if her explanation held a trace of rationality.

“Besides, socks with sandals?” She bent to pull off the offending—but warming—footwear and revealed ten unpainted toenails. “Isn’t that one of those crimes against fashion things?” She stuffed the socks in her jeans pockets, wiped her hand on her denim-clad thigh, and held it out. “Keeley Farrell. Who are you?” Her eyes settled on him, curious and alert. They were smart eyes. Confident eyes. Eyes with stories behind them.

He took the offered hand. “Gus Hammond. And you’re the strangest nun I’ve ever met.”

One quick strong shake and their hands parted. She headed to the back of the truck, asking over her shoulder, “How many nuns have you met?”

She had him there. “None.”

“Well, now there you go.” She started tugging a chair from the back of the truck. Unsuccessfully.

He leaned in and grasped the other side. Between them, they pulled it out and set it on the ground. Sister Keeley pulled the scarf from her head and rubbed at the perspiration on her forehead. She looked at his chest, scanned his biceps, and sighed lustily—her expression completely lust free. “I hate to admit it, but those muscles men were endowed with do come in handy at times. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” He looked at the wrecked chair. “Your girl told me you were getting rid of junk, not—” he stopped.

She arched a brow. “Collecting more?” She patted the chair back. “Nothing wrong with this a coat of paint and a bit of fabric won’t fix.” Leaving her hand on the chair, she said, “Now, what exactly are you doing here, Mr. Hammond? Give me the right answer, and I’ll give you some lemonade.” She raised a brow.

“I’m here on behalf of Dinah Marsden.”

The brow stayed raised. “Ah, the Mayday House patroness.” She seemed to think a bit. “My letter, right?”

“Right.”

“Lemonade it is, then, but I reserve the right to lace it with hemlock, if I don’t like what you have to say.”

She stepped in front of him and headed toward the house.

When he didn’t immediately follow, she turned back and gave him a quizzical glance.

“Are you really a nun?”

“Ex-nun.” A soft look came into her eyes. “Still crazy about the Man, but I took the habit off a few years ago.”

“I see,” he said, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“No, you don’t.” She eyed him and half smiled. “Now, how about that lemonade?”

Gus trailed Keeley Farrell into the house.

The kitchen was a mess, a construction havoc zone, with paint, brushes, tarps, and displaced furniture creating a miserable tableau in a room that was floor-to-ceiling white. Gus had a flash of Miami, of Dinah Marsden.

“Primer,” Keeley said. “I’m thinking orange or maybe lemon.” Looking up, she let out a long sigh. “I haven’t made it up there yet.”

He followed her gaze to the high ceiling, where a rough yellowed surface was flecked with peeling gray paint.

“Sit there.” She nodded toward a chair near the table. “It looks safe enough. Paint-wise, I mean.”

He took the seat and again glanced around at the chaos. “How long have you been here?”

“A couple of weeks,” she said from behind the fridge door. “Just getting started on the place.” She straightened and closed the door, picked a couple of glasses from the cupboard, and came toward him with a frosty jug of lemonade.

“Will you pour, please? I need to wash my hands.” She went to the sink and scrubbed, hands, face, and arms, as if for surgery.

Gus poured. It was a job he was expert at. But he didn’t take his eyes off Keeley Farrell, and he had no idea why. As average went, she’d get the gold. Except for the odd red hair which didn’t match anything else about her. For one thing her complexion was too dark. Either that or her freckles had formed a conglomerate—and her lashes were, if not black, at least a dark brown. Nothing matched. Nothing fit, including her jeans. If they were any baggier, a high wind would take her to Oz. As a woman, Keeley Farrell blew the lid off the word ordinary—except for the way she looked at him. Dead in the eye, with what seemed unshakable self-reliance. He sensed if the wind did take her to Oz, she’d be running the place within the week.

“Do you want some ice?” she asked.

“No, this is fine, thanks.”

She pulled a chair up to the table, sat directly across from him, and took a long drink of her lemonade. Putting the glass down, she settled her forthright gaze on him. “So, have you brought a check, or do I go get the hemlock?” She smiled at him, her eyes lighting with it, the curve of her lips showing white, even teeth.

Her smile stilled him, sucker-punched him. His chest tightened, and his focus shifted from words to her lush mouth, then to her throat, the vee of warm skin visible above the two undone buttons on her outsized shirt. His out-of-nowhere reaction shocked the hell out of him. Here, in this place, with a woman like this, it made no sense.

“No check,” he said, his tone sharper than he intended.

“You’re kidding, right?” She eyed him, the smile ebbing slowly from her freshly scrubbed face. “You’re not kidding.”

“No, I’m not.”

“And here I was hoping this was going to be easy. I don’t know why, though, when anything to do with money never is.”

“You’re right about that.”

Her expression was serious and puzzled when she said, “Why? Why won’t Mrs. Marsden continue her support of Mayday House? According to Mary’s records, she’s been its most important patron for years. Thirty at least.”

Good question, and until now Gus hadn’t asked it, or given a damn, figuring it was another of Dinah’s whims. Dinah gave and Dinah took away; it was what she did. Business as usual. “She didn’t say. Just that she wants to close the house down. Quietly.”

Her eyes widened. “Close it down? This house has been operating as a haven for women for over forty years.”

“So she said—and from what she told me, for most of those years, it’s run on her dime.” He stood, set his glass on the table. “It’s her money, her call, Miss Farrell.”

“Keeley,” she said absently, adding, “Does she have financial problems, is that it?”

He damn near laughed. Dinah might have problems, but none of them had to do with money. “No.”

“Then why?” She stood, going toe-to-toe with him, her eyes fixed on his as if she could see inside his brain. “I think I deserve an explanation.”

He looked away, then back. A nun—even an ex-nun—had no business in his head. “She thinks Mayday House is irrelevant, that this kind of place is unnecessary.
Archaic
was the word she used.”

“Archaic?” She puffed out a breath. “Does she think girls and women have stopped getting pregnant, stopped being abused, stopped needing help?” A frown gathered force on her forehead. “I need to talk to her, make her understand.”

“She doesn’t want to talk. As for her reasons, they’re not my business. Nor yours.” He softened his tone, added, “I know Dinah Marsden. She’s made up her mind. She won’t be sending any more checks.” He studied her face, her expression a combination of stricken and a near-painful concentration. “What she is prepared to do is buy the house and property, Miss Farrell—”

“Keeley,” she corrected again, this time distractedly.

“Okay.” He started again. “She’s prepared to buy the house, Keeley
,
and be generous enough that you can, as she put it, ‘set up shop’ somewhere else.” He remembered Dinah’s determination to close the house, and added, “And if you want my advice, I’d hold off a bit before I caved. It’ll make for a bigger check.”

She looked at him as if he’d taken the winner’s podium after a stupid contest. “Why would you think I’d ‘cave,’ as you put it? This is my home. I was born here. I have no intention of abandoning it, or the services it provides. I’ll
make
it work—with or without Mrs. Marsden’s support.”

“Have it your way. I’ll call back in a few days. See if you want me to arrange that check for you.” He headed for the back door off the kitchen.

Seeming rapt in her own thoughts, she let him go without a word.

At the door, he added, “If I were you, I’d take the money. Be easier all around.”

She looked up at him, her expression clear. “Money, Mister Gus Hammond, is nothing but a huge pain in the behind and it’s anything but ‘easy.’ Add to that most of it goes to all the wrong places.” Again she frowned. “What I need to figure out is why—suddenly—everyone’s turning against Mary and Mayday House.”

He had no idea what she was talking about or who
everyone
was, and she didn’t give him a chance to find out. The last message Keeley Farrell gave him was her back, walking through the open kitchen doorway and down a long hallway.

He let himself out.

Standing on the front porch, Keeley watched the beautiful car carry its scarred but even more beautiful man along the rutted Mayday House driveway, her heart as heavy as a lead ingot in her chest.

She might have sounded tough, but the truth was Dinah Marsden had been her best hope to save Mary Weaver’s life’s work. And that hope was gone.

She leaned a shoulder against the porch post and tried to think. She had enough money in the bank to last a month, maybe six weeks, if she raised miserly to high art, and lived on bread and beans.

Damn, damn, damn.

Worse than anything was the sinking feeling she’d failed Mary, hadn’t lived up to the faith she’d placed in her. Under that hurt lay the growing fear that under her stewardship Mayday House would falter—maybe close forever.

She closed her eyes, shook her head, and clenched her teeth.

She
would not
let that happen. She’d make things right again. She owed it to Mary and she owed it to herself.

Get your butt in gear, Farrell, and figure out what’s happening here, and what you’re going to do about it.

She walked to the far end of the porch—relaxing her hands which had somehow turned themselves into tight fists—and tried to make sense of things.

Mary was dead, and the main supporters of Mayday House, first someone named Christiana Fordham, and now Dinah Marsden, had backed away. Dinah Marsden—according to Gus Hammond—wanted no part of it. And she had no reason not to believe him.

Keeley took in a deep breath, then let it out. She’d never met anyone like him before, everything about him so dark, so intense. When he’d taken his eyes off her ridiculous socks and looked at her—really looked at her—her knees had wobbled, for heaven’s sake, and went as weak as a schoolgirl’s. Crazy!

At least Dinah Marsden had sent someone to give her the bad news. Christiana Fordham simply ignored her letter and refused to take her calls.

And there was that weird phone call last week. Thank God, there’d been none since, but when she finally fell exhausted into her bed at night, she lay there convinced there was a bogeyman underneath it. Wracked nerves, that’s what she had, which did her no good at all.

Those same nerves used to work for her, push her to do what needed to be done in the face of hunger, sickness, bombs, and gunfire. Now all they did was rattle her, confuse her—and too often get the better of her.

She gripped the porch railing, and dropped her head. Before Mr. Slick-And-Beautiful showed his damaged face again, she had to have a plan. If she didn’t, she’d be forced to take his offer.

That plan meant fund-raising and information gathering. Keeley straightened away from the railing and headed back into the house.

The rats were deserting Mayday House, which meant that somewhere along the line, something had to have gone terribly wrong. She intended to find out exactly what that something was.