The Housekeeper's Daughter

“‘Fine’ isn’t good enough.” Mrs. Kendrick smiled at Gabe as he turned toward her. “We want perfect. Good morning, dear,” she said, greeting him with an affectionate peck on the cheek. “We missed you at breakfast. Your uncle Charles wants you to meet him at the stables to go riding.”

Sydney, wearing crisp white linen, waved toward the house. “And the kids want you to play soccer out front with them.”

“Oh, they can’t play out there,” Mrs. Kendrick said. “The rental people will be arriving with the tent any minute to set it up. It would be best if they played down by the tennis courts.”

“Do you want me to take them riding?” Gabe offered.

“No!” the three younger women chimed in unison.

“We don’t want anything broken,” his little sister, Tess, explained. “Knowing you and Uncle Charles, you’d have them out there jumping logs or hedges. A trip to the emergency room is not on the schedule.”

“Weddings are finely tuned events,” Sydney informed him.

“What she means, brother dear,” chimed in his other sister, Ashley, as she and another female cousin joined them, “is that you have no idea what goes into the planning of an occasion like this. Your people could take notes.”

Silently moving another twenty feet away, Addie continued her task of inspecting the area where cocktails would be served following the ceremony and before dinner. Since the white gazebo would hold the bar, she worked her way through the profusion of red petunias bordering its base.

No one seemed to notice her as she all but disappeared behind the elegant white structure to crouch by the flowers. Just as no one had seemed to recognize that it was she and her men who had babied and nurtured every leaf and blade of grass on the palatial grounds. Any compliments about the grounds were meant for Mrs. Kendrick. Not for her. She was only the means to an end.

“So who’s going to enter this madness next?” Sydney wanted to know. “Is anyone involved with someone they’re not telling us about?”

“Not that I know of,” replied the lovely, rather reserved Ashley. “And certainly not me. I haven’t had a date in months, so that puts me at the back of the line.”

“What about Cord? Is he seeing anyone since that model sued him?”

Ashley sent her tactless cousin a subtle, shushing glance. “I think my brother is laying low after that paternity suit. He’s coming to the wedding alone.”

“I just pray he stays out of trouble for a while,” Mrs. Kendrick murmured. Her second son garnered more publicity in some years than the entire family combined. “We’ve had enough sensationalism for this year.”

“What about you, Gabe?” the nosy Sydney ventured, undaunted. “Do you have a lady friend you’re hiding from us?”

“Are you kidding?” The bride gave a little laugh. “The way the press has been digging around to find out if and when he’s going to announce, they’d have come up with anything he was hiding by now. There’s no woman. Trust me.”

From the corner of her eye, Addie saw a good-natured smile deepen the lines bracketing Gabe’s mouth. “I think I hear a horse calling,” he muttered. “I’m out of here.”

“Coward,” Ashley whispered.

“Smart,” he countered, backing away.

He caught Addie’s glance as he did, his gray eyes laughing. But he’d no sooner given her a discreet wink to indicate he would see her later, than a look of recognition swept his sister’s flawlessly made up face.

“I know someone here who’s getting married,” Ashley announced. “Our groundskeeper,” she said, stopping Gabe dead in his tracks. “I just heard it from our cook yesterday.” Genuinely pleased, she shifted her attention toward the gazebo. She craned her neck, laying her hand delicately over her pearls. “Addie,” she called. “Congratulations on your engagement.”

Every one of the beautifully dressed women smiled at where she knelt in her serviceable denim and grass-stained boots.

With his back to everyone but her, the smile in Gabe’s eyes died completely.

“My congratulations, too,” Mrs. Kendrick added, sounding as sincere as she looked. “Your mother told me you haven’t set a date yet, and I know we’ll speak later, but I want you to know now that we’re going to miss you here.”

Addie wasn’t accustomed to being the center of attention. More familiar with being nearly invisible in a group like this, she’d been caught completely off guard at being included in it. Even for a few moments. That had to be the reason she felt as if her cheeks were flaming.

The only thing she could think to say was “Thank you,” before the women all turned their focus back to each other. She couldn’t think of anything to do, either, except jerk her self-conscious glance from Gabe’s when she realized it had caught on his once more.

Her cheeks were actually cool to her touch when she brushed the back of her hand over one and bent her head to her task once more. Yet, as she heard the women talking now about weddings past as they moved to where the ceremony itself would take place, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Gabe had been caught off guard, too.

She just had no idea what to make of the way his brow had pinched as he walked away and headed for the stables.

Chapter Two

G abe was panting hard when he grabbed the tail of his faded-gray Yale T-shirt, wiped the sweat from his face and planted his hands on his knees to catch his breath. The early-morning sun beat on the back of his head. The still-cool air fed his lungs.

He’d just shaved fifteen seconds off his fastest mile, and that after running his usual five.

There wasn’t a muscle in his body not screaming in protest.

He glanced at the timer on his watch again, took a deeper, slower drag of air.

He’d just beaten his personal best, but the satisfaction he should have felt simply wasn’t there. That disappointed him, too, considering that a quarter of a minute was the largest chunk he’d ever managed to cut off before. But he hadn’t set out to indulge his competitive streak. He’d practically run himself into the ground trying to escape the restiveness that had nagged him ever since he’d walked away from Addie yesterday.

He rose slowly, wiping his face again, and started walking up the oak-lined drive from the isolated country road. He wasn’t entirely sure what he’d felt when his sister had broken Addie’s news. He’d wanted to think it was only surprise, that he had simply been caught off guard because she’d given no hint of being involved with anyone.

The explanation was logical, which he always was. And rational, which he tried to be, too. Considering that he had known her since she was born, he tended to think of her simply as he saw her, and not as someone with a life beyond the boundaries of his family’s estate. It stood to reason that having her move outside that neat little box would jar him a little.

It bothered him that he would be so narrow in his view of someone, but the logic placated him. A little, anyway. It didn’t do a thing, however, to explain his edginess. Something under that unfamiliar discontent felt a little like disbelief. Or, slight. Or, maybe, it was…disappointment.

The thoughts tightened the muscles in his jaw as he glanced toward the main house with its three stories of windows and tall, curved portico. He would have thought she would confide something so important. She talked to him about everything that mattered to her. Or so he’d thought.

The party rental truck had arrived with tables, chairs and table settings for five hundred guests. The florist was there, too. Workers darted back and forth from the boxy white vehicles pushing dollies laden with cartons or bearing bouquets and sprays of white roses and gardenias. A crew placed garlands of flowers wrapped in ribbon around the front fountain. Another ant-like procession of personnel, all bearing centerpieces, headed around back to the white tent that had been set up for dining.

Gabe knew Addie wouldn’t be in the middle of all the activity. Her preparatory work was done, and it would be her nature to stay out of everyone’s way. Finding her on more than a hundred acres of hedges, wind breaks, and wooded land surrounding a private lake might have been nearly impossible, too, had it not been for the sound of the riding lawn mower. Following the muffled roar, he found one of the uniformed gardeners making a final pass over the three acres of lawn down by the tennis courts and asked him where he could find his boss.

Three minutes later Gabe found her behind a boxwood hedge near the garage. Dressed in her familiar denim, she was on her knees at the sprinkler controls.

The tall wall of foliage hid both her and the six-car garage from view of the activity taking place on the opposite side of the main house.

“It wouldn’t do to have the sprinklers go off and soak all the guests,” she said, sensing his presence before he could say a word. “Weddings are supposed to be memorable, but I don’t think that’s the sort of memory your mother would appreciate.”

Rising, she turned from her task, her glance moving from the V of sweat darkening the neck of his shirt to his loose gray running shorts. For the first time in memory, her smile lacked the easy welcome he had grown so accustomed to seeing.

“How was your ride yesterday?” she asked, sounding more at ease than she looked. “I hear you took out the new stallion. He’s magnificent, isn’t he?”

The latest addition to his father’s show stable was indeed an incredible animal. Addie could probably discuss its pedigree and prizes equally as well as she could the ancestry and awards of his mother’s Victorian roses. If something was alive, she was interested in it. But all he wanted to discuss was the little matter she’d failed to mention on her own.

“Why didn’t you tell me you’re engaged?”

The question didn’t seem to surprise her. It was the accusation behind it that seemed to throw her a little.

It threw him, too.