Holly Read online

  “No doubt your suggestion is that I spend more time with you.”

  “Or your parents or the dog catcher.”

  “Ultimately, what’s in this for you?”

  “That job I told you about. A nice, steady job with free housing.”

  “Judging by what you did to Lorrie today, I don’t think he’s going to want to hire you. Besides, how could you run the place? You’re a rotten gardener.”

  “I can boss people around and I’m great with numbers. Give me some numbers to add.”

  “Thirty-nine, forty-two, eighty-one, two thousand and six, and seventy,” she said quickly.

  “Two thousand two hundred and thirty-eight,” he answered instantly. “Comes in handy in business.”

  Holly gave a sigh. “I want to register here and now that I don’t believe one word of your reasons for doing whatever it is you’re trying to do. It’s just that I can’t figure out what you’re up to. Yet. However, there is some wisdom in what you’re saying. Today, Lorrie seemed a bit, well, a bit bored.”

  “By you?! He certainly doesn’t know you like I do, does he? I bet if he saw you bare chested and in a concrete pit he wouldn’t find you boring.”

  In spite of her intentions, Holly smiled. “I guess not.” She held out her skirt, then the long, lacy sleeve of her blouse. “Taylor dressed me. She said that this outfit of hers was guaranteed to catch a man.”

  “She’s right,” Nick said solemnly. “She wore it and she caught Charles.”

  Holly shook her head at him. “You are truly wicked. Do you think we could get something to eat? I’m starving.”

  “Cucumber sandwiches for lunch?”

  “And pimento cheese on tiny crackers.”

  Smiling, Nick kicked the motorcycle to life, but Holly couldn’t figure out how to straddle the back. Should she pull her dress up to her hips? Before she could make a decision, Nick reached over and tore the side seam of the skirt from her midthigh all the way down to the hem.

  At first Holly was shocked, then she laughed. At least she’d never have to wear the awful outfit again. She threw a leg over the back of the motorcycle, wrapped her arms around Nick’s back, and they roared off.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “TAYLOR,” LORRIE SAID INTO HIS CELL PHONE, “I know everyone wants me to make mad, passionate love to Holly and to marry her, but she has to be the most boring person I have ever met.” He paused. “Yes, she is very pretty. Beautiful even, and that body of hers is perfect, but she looks at me with great cow eyes and her lashes fan the breeze. I thought I might be sick.”

  Pausing, he listened to Taylor’s ranting, to her threats, to her warnings.

  Lorrie yawned. “By the way, exactly who is this gardener? The one with the motorcycle? I swear, when he rode up, I wanted to leave with him. No, of course I didn’t let Holly know that. Tell me, dear, is Holly a virgin? She certainly acts like one. And dresses like one.”

  He paused. “You put her in that getup? Taylor darling, why don’t you let her borrow your little black leather number, the one with the spiked dog collar? Or is Charles wearing it all the time now?” He laughed at Taylor’s answer.

  “By the way, dear, young Holly said something interesting. She said the Belle Chere treasure was real. Yes, I know that it’s just a family legend, and I know I was to tell the story just to interest Miss Hollander Tools, but she said Nick—that is the gardener’s name, isn’t it?—said the treasure was real. She was so positive when she said it that it made me think they’d found something in the papers in the attic. Has she said anything to you? No? Then perhaps it’s wishful thinking on my part. I’m sure that if there were any treasure at Belle Chere my late father would have found it and used it to buy an underground mountain, or whatever real estate he could lose money on.”

  Lorrie waited. “Okay, I promise. I’ll drag myself out of bed in the morning. She invited herself here for breakfast so I’ll buy eggs—a lot of eggs. She has an appetite like a field hand. Should I make grits, too? Now, now, dear, no need for language like that. Who knows if Daddy is listening or not? And, by the way, couldn’t we reconsider this marriage idea? You should have seen her today. If I’d said another sad word about my ex-wife or the state of my home, she would have whipped out her checkbook. Maybe—”

  He listened to Taylor while looking at his nails, then smoothing his hair. “All right, dear, I understand. We need to be protected by the sanctity of the marriage contract. So be it. Now let me go. I have some people to meet tonight. Yes, it is a private party. Very, very private, and, yes, they are trustworthy. Don’t you have something to go to with Charles tonight? My, my, Taylor, such language. Your rich little baby sister would be shocked.”

  Smiling, he hung up.

  Chapter Sixteen

  One Month Later

  HOLLY AND NICK WERE SITTING ON THE FLOOR OF the attic of Belle Chere. The big window fan was on and there were three more fans sitting on the floor, but the room was still hot. She was wearing a tiny pair of cotton shorts and a halter top, while Nick had on just shorts.

  Between the heat, the humidity, and her exhaustion, it was all she could do to stay awake. For the last four weeks, she’d had no rest. It was as though she’d become the rope in a game of tug-of-war between two men. Lorrie took her days; Nick took her nights.

  Just in the past week she’d been to two dinner parties, a country club dance, a swimming party, a picnic for a hundred, and a flower show, all with Lorrie. Since the six-hour first date, as Nick called it, she’d spent almost no time alone with Lorrie. Instead, they’d entered into a mad social whirl in Edenton, Elizabeth City, and Windsor. Lorrie knew everyone and was invited everywhere.

  True, she’d enjoyed herself—to a point. She’d laughed and talked and eaten well. But every evening, as Lorrie drove her back to Spring Hill, she’d been so tired she could hardly sit up. What was it about all that chatting that drained the energy out of her?

  When they arrived at Spring Hill, Lorrie and she had been alone in his car and there had been time for good night kisses. But every time Lorrie made a move toward her, Holly had turned away—or yawned, or done something to keep him from kissing her.

  “My little virgin princess,” be began calling her.

  At first, Holly had taken offense at the name, but as the days went by and the name kept Lorrie away from her, she began to like it.

  But for all her fatigue, once she was out of his car, energy returned to her. Every night, without exception, she ran through her parents’ dark garden to Nick’s house.

  He greeted her with open arms, never with questions or recriminations. They made love as soon as they saw each other, sometimes in the garden, sometimes in the house. It never mattered where, and each night their passion was renewed, never growing stale or slacking off.

  After their first lust was quenched, they often took a shower together, then they settled down to look at what Nick had found out that day. From the first day, Holly had made a stand: If she was going to go out with Lorrie to every social event within a hundred miles, then Nick was to be allowed to research at Belle Chere—and her father was to give him a fifty percent raise. That the money was Holly’s was something that Nick didn’t need to know.

  Every night, their bodies damp from their showers and momentarily sated from their lovemaking, they shared a bottle of wine and went over whatever Nick had been able to uncover that day.

  How Holly envied him! All day long she’d had to make small talk about her father’s illustrious career, about the celebrities she’d met—and last, but certainly not least, about Hollander Tools. The people were always polite, but they asked endless questions about her and Hollander Tools.

  All her life, Holly had worked to escape the stigma attached to being an heiress, but when she went places with Lorrie she had to smile at all the questions. She often wondered how much Nick knew about “who” she was, but if he did know, he never mentioned it.

  As the days went by, the double life threatened to