The Mackades Collection (Books 1-4). Nora Roberts

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      What the hell, he thought, he could always make room on his plate.

      “Thanks.” He took the steaming enameled mug she offered. “I figured on hiring a firm out of D.C. or Baltimore, maybe taking some time to hunt through some shops myself.”

      “I can acquire anything a firm in D.C. or Baltimore can, and offer a better price.” She hoped.

      “Maybe. The thing is, I like the idea of keeping the business close to home. We’ll see what you can do.” He sipped the cider, found it hot and pungent. “What do you know about the Barlow place?”

      “It’s falling apart. I think it’s a crime that nothing’s been done to preserve it. This part of the country is usually careful with its historic areas and buildings. But the town ignores that place. If I had the means, I’d have bought it myself.”

      “And you’d have gotten more than you bargained for. The house is solid as rock. If it wasn’t so well built, it’d be rubble by now. But, it needs work…” he mused, and began to picture it all in his head. “Floors to be leveled and sanded and sealed, walls to be plastered or taken down, windows replaced. The roof’s a mess.”

      He brought himself back, shrugged. “That’s just time and money. When it’s ready, I want to put it back the way it looked in 1862, when the Barlows lived there and watched the Battle of Antietam from their parlor window.”

      “Did they?” Regan asked with a smile. “I’d have thought they’d have been cowering in the root cellar.”

      “Not the way I imagine it. The rich and privileged watching the show, maybe annoyed when cannon fire cracked a window or the screams of the dead and dying woke the baby from its nap.”

      “You’re a cynical one. Being rich wouldn’t mean you wouldn’t feel horror if you had to watch men dying on your front lawn.”

      “The heart of the battle didn’t get quite that close. Anyway, that’s what I want—the right colors, trim, wallpaper, furnishings, doodads. The works.” He had an urge for a cigarette and banked it. “How do you feel about redoing a haunted house?”

      “Interested.” She eyed him over the rim of her mug. “Besides, I don’t believe in ghosts.”

      “You will before it’s done. I spent the night there once, as a kid, with my brothers.”

      “Creaking doors, rattling chains?”

      “No.” He didn’t smile now. “Except the ones Jared arranged to scare the guts out of the rest of us. There’s a spot on the stairway that’ll turn your skin to ice. You can smell smoke near the living room hearth. And you can feel something looking over your shoulder when you walk down the hallways. If it’s quiet enough, and you’re listening, you can hear sabers clash.”

      Despite herself, she couldn’t quite suppress a shudder. “If you’re trying to scare me off the commission, you won’t.”

      “Just laying out the blueprint. I’ll want you to take a look at the place, go through the rooms with me. We’ll see what kind of ideas you have. Tomorrow afternoon suit you? About two?”

      “That’ll be fine. I’ll need to take measurements.”

      “Good.” He set his mug aside, rose. “Nice doing business with you.”

      Again she accepted his hand. “Welcome home.”

      “You’re the first one who’s said it.” Enjoying the irony, he lifted her hand to his lips, watching her. “Then again, you don’t know any better. See you tomorrow. And, Regan,” he added on his way to the door, “take the dragon out of the window. I want it.”

      On the way out of town, he pulled his car to the side of the road and stopped. Ignoring the snow and the icy fingers of the wind, he studied the house on the rise of the hill.

      Its broken windows and sagging porches revealed nothing, just as Rafe’s shadowed eyes revealed nothing. Ghosts, he mused, while snow drifted silently around him. Maybe. But he was beginning to realize that the only ghosts he was trying to put to rest were inside him.

      Chapter 2

      The beauty of owning your own shop, as far as Regan was concerned, was that you could buy and sell what you chose, your hours were your own to make, and the atmosphere was your own to create.

      Still, being the sole proprietor and sole employee of Past Times didn’t mean Regan Bishop tolerated any slack. As her own boss, she was tough, often intolerant, and expected the best from her staff. As that staff, she worked hard and rarely complained.

      She had exactly what she’d always wanted—a home and business in a small rural town, away from the pressures and headaches of the city where she’d lived the first twenty-five years of her life.

      Moving to Antietam and starting her own business had been part of her five-year plan after she graduated from American University. She had degrees in history and business management tucked under her belt, and by the time she donned cap and gown she’d already earned five years experience in antiques.

      Working for someone else.

      Now she was the boss. Every inch of the shop and the cozy apartment atop it was hers—and the bank’s. The MacKade commission was going to go a long way toward making her share a great deal larger.

      The minute Rafe left the afternoon before, Regan had locked up and dashed to the library. She’d checked out an armload of books to supplement her own research volumes.

      By midnight, when her eyes had threatened to cross, she had read and taken notes on every detail of life as it applied to the Civil War era in Maryland.

      She knew every aspect of the Battle of Antietam, from Lee’s march to his retreat across the river, from McClellan’s waffling to President Lincoln’s visit to a farm outside Sharpsburg. She knew the number of dead and wounded, the bloody progress over hill and through cornfield.

      It was sad and standard information, and she’d studied it before. Indeed, her fascination with the battle and the quiet area into which it had exploded had influenced her choice of a home.

      But this time she’d been able to find bits and pieces on the Barlows—both fact and speculation. The family had lived in the house on the hill for almost a hundred years before that horrible day in September of 1862. Prosperous landowners and businessmen, they had lived like lords. Their balls and dinners had enticed guests from as far as Washington and Virginia.

      She knew how they had dressed—the frock coats and lace and the hooped skirts. Silk hats and satin slippers. She knew how they had lived, with servants pouring wine into crystal goblets, their home decorated with hothouse flowers, their furniture glowing with bee’s wax polish.

      Now, negotiating snowy, windy roads under sparkling sunlight, she could see exactly the colors and fabrics, the furnishings and knickknacks that would have surrounded them.

      Chiffoniers of rosewood, she mused. Wedgwood china and horsehair settees. The fine Chippendale chest-on-chest for the master, the graceful cherrywood-and-beveled-glass secretaire for his lady. Brocade portieres and rich Colonial blue for the walls in the parlor.

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