One True Secret. Bethany Campbell

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СКАЧАТЬ “But we have an agreement. You signed it with Mondragon.”

      “Take your agreement,” she snapped at him, “fold it five ways and shove it where the sun won’t shine.”

      She stamped toward her sandals, snatched them up and jammed them onto her feet. And she was off, walking up the path so fast she almost loped.

      He didn’t have time to put on his own sandals; he went right after her. This was a mistake. The path was rough, and littered with burrs that cut his feet.

      But he kept up with her anyway. “You have a contract, and you have to honor it,” he said, all teasing gone from his voice. “Besides that, you need to talk to me.”

      “When we get to the house, you get in your car and get off our property. Or I’ll throw rocks at you. I swear it.”

      He had no doubt she meant it. “You need to talk to me, because you need to know what else I know. If I can find these things out, so can other people. And I know some interesting things. You can discuss them frankly. Or I can publish them and say you refuse to explain. That would be damaging to you. And to your grandfather. To your whole family.”

      She speared him with another of her killer glares. “I said don’t come back. I meant it.”

      She lifted her skirt to avoid a short, burr-laden bush. He couldn’t stop himself. He grasped her by one forearm and forced her to halt.

      She jerked as if he’d seared her with live wires. This time she was going to hit him. In a flash, she raised her open hand and drew it back to slap his face.

      He caught her wrist. “Stop,” he warned, getting angry himself. “And listen. I’ll be back, and you’ll talk to me, and you’ll talk straight.”

      She narrowed her eyes in pure malevolence. “And if I won’t talk?”

      He brought his face close to hers. “In that case, I’m going to have to implicate you and your family in a million-dollar scam. So you need to talk to me if you want to prove that you aren’t in the middle of the biggest fraud in the art world.”

      MERRIMAN FASCINATED Claire. He’d put Bunbury down so he could take notes on the flowers and shoot more pictures, but he’d patted and rubbed and caressed the cat so thoroughly that Bunbury was clearly in love.

      He stayed next to Merriman, rubbing against the man’s leg and purring. Claire hadn’t thought the cat would take to strangers, for he hardly ever saw any.

      But she saw few herself, and she, too, took to Merriman. He seemed shy and friendly at once, a mysterious combination. And he acted so interested in everything she said that she found it easy, even pleasant, to answer his questions.

      “It’s a coral vine,” she told him as he knelt to shoot a vine covered with dark-pink blossoms. “The flowers look like a string of hearts. Some people call it the Chain of Love.”

      He snapped three shots, then wrote the name in his notebook. He looked up and gave her a bashful smile. “Chain of Love. That’s a pretty name.”

      His smile was intriguing. It was straight, not curved like the grin of the Cheshire cat. And when he smiled, for some reason, his forehead wrinkled, so that his smile looked…thoughtful.

      He had thick dark-blond hair that wouldn’t stay put; it stirred constantly in the breeze. He was handsome in a way that was both boyish and rugged.

      He pointed at a white-flowered vine, strung with similarly shaped blooms. “Is this another kind of Chain of Love?”

      He looked so earnest that she almost smiled herself. “That’s a bleeding heart. In some places they use the flower to cast spells.”

      The wind rippled his hair so it fell over his forehead. “What kind of spells?”

      Maybe she shouldn’t have brought that up; a blush heated her face. “Spells to…attract something…that you, uh, desire.”

      “Could I take a sprig?”

      She tilted her head in puzzlement. “What for?”

      “A souvenir. Something real. Not just pictures.”

      She licked her lips nervously. He watched the movement as if it hypnotized him. “I guess,” she breathed.

      “I’ll take the pictures first.” He moved nearer the vine, Bunbury pressing against his knee. He clicked the shutter three times and jotted a note in his tablet. Carefully, he picked a section of vine hung with delicate flowers. He tucked it in the buttonhole of his blue shirt.

      Then he gave her such a long look that she felt more embarrassed than before. He said, “I don’t suppose you’d let me take your photo.”

      “Oh, no,” she said, alarmed. “I couldn’t do that. We don’t want our pictures in any magazine.”

      “Not for the magazine. For me. To remember you. Nobody else would see it. I promise.”

      She shook her head. “No. I couldn’t do that.”

      “I’d really like to,” he said. “On my word of honor, it wouldn’t be for publication.”

      “No,” she repeated. “I can’t. I don’t even know why you’re taking pictures of the flowers. They could be anybody’s flowers.”

      “They’re your flowers,” he said.

      “Not really. I just help take care of them. They belong to my grandparents.”

      “Maybe they inspire your grandfather’s paintings. His paintings are colorful. Strong colors.”

      She turned and stared at the banyan tree. “I can’t talk about him. Or the paintings.”

      “You don’t have to,” he said. He put his tablet aside and rubbed Bunbury’s back. His expression went solemn, as if he was thinking hard. “Will I see you tomorrow?”

      Confusion filled her. “No. Probably not.” But she had wanted to say yes. She had wanted to say it very much.

      “The next day?” he persisted.

      “No. I shouldn’t be here now. I should go back inside.”

      She got to her feet and went to pick up Bunbury, but the cat was pressed so affectionately against Merriman’s thigh that her hand brushed the man’s leg.

      She’d knelt so that her eyes were now on the same level as Merriman’s. “Would you go out with me?” he asked.

      She froze, her hands on the cat’s bulging middle. The question was extraordinary. “What?”

      “Would you go out with me?” he repeated. “I wouldn’t pry into your family’s business, I swear. I’d just like to be with you. I know it—”

      The gate clanged as Emerson burst through it. She stopped and stared in anger at Claire and Merriman kneeling so closely together. Beyond her, standing outside the gate, Claire could see Eli Garner, his expression fierce.

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