Asking For Trouble

“Yes, and it’s a safe place to hide, isn’t it? I don’t think it’s quite natural for a woman Beth’s age to be holed up with a couple of old ladies, morning, noon and night. She should be out enjoying herself. I just pray that being married to that awful Greg Randall hasn’t turned her against men and into a…well, you know.”

Brad’s mouth fell open. Beth might be a great many things, but a lesbian? He doubted that very much. In fact, the idea seemed quite preposterous.

“Ivy Swindel! What a ghastly thing to say.”

The old woman shrugged. “I call them like I see them.” When Brad turned to wave goodbye to the Rogers, who were off on a sight-seeing trip, she smiled and winked at her sister.

Checking her wristwatch, Iris frowned. “I wonder what’s been keeping Beth? She told me she wouldn’t be out in the garden long.”

“Shall I go and look for her?” Brad suddenly felt the need to escape. He had just asked the question when the object of their discussion came bounding out of the house, slamming the front door behind her and carrying a wicker basket filled with pumpkins and gourds. Beth’s cheeks were rosy and her hair something of a disaster, but her smile was as radiant as ever.

“Good morning, everyone! Sorry I’m late.”

“Have you seen Stacy, by any chance?” he asked, trying to ignore the way his gut clenched at the sight of her. “I don’t want her wandering off. She’s not familiar with the area and might get lost.”

“Yes, we spoke a few minutes ago.” She explained about Stacy taking the dog for a walk. “Don’t worry. She’ll be fine. I used to roam all over this place when I was young.”

“Dr. Donovan’s been inquiring after his father,” Iris informed her niece. “We didn’t tell him very much. We couldn’t.”

“I’m sure you were as helpful as you could be,” Beth said, silently thanking God that her aunts had the presence of mind to keep quiet.

“Yes, some of your aunts’ comments were very enlightening.”

Brad’s comment gave her pause. She sensed a change in his demeanor from last night. He seemed a tad more reserved, not quite as friendly. Or maybe it was just her imagination, which had been in overdrive lately. And after Stacy’s cruel comments, she was admittedly feeling a bit sensitive about things.

“My aunts can be quite talkative when they put their minds to it. Can’t you, dears?”

The two women burst into giggles, then stood. “We’ll leave you to entertain Dr. Donovan, dear,” Ivy stated, casting her sister a meaningful look.

“Iris is anxious to try another incantation. She’s trying to raise the dead,” the older woman explained to Brad, who nearly tipped his rocker backward into the front window but caught himself just in time.

Feeling her cheeks warm, Beth told her aunts, “You’d better go upstairs and rest. It wouldn’t be good to overtire yourselves.” She smiled apologetically at the handsome doctor, wondering what he must be thinking.

Her aunts sounded like a couple of nuts.

They are a couple of nuts!

She had no sooner formed that thought when out of the corner of her eye she spotted Buster dragging a large bone onto the front lawn. “Holy hell!” She covered her mouth when she realized she’d spoken her thoughts aloud and glanced at Brad to see that he had heard her.

Damn! She was really having a bad day…make that year.

“I beg your pardon,” Brad said, staring at her strangely.

“Nothing. I’ve…I’ve got to see about my dog. He’s gotten into…something…the garbage…yes…the garbage. Buster, shame on you!” The cellar doors were warped and didn’t always shut properly. What if Buster had gotten back in?

Good grief! What if Stacy had seen Buster dig up the bones? What if she told her father about them?

Vaulting over the porch railing effortlessly, as if she’d been doing it most of her life—which, of course, she had—Beth rushed toward the dog, knowing something had to be done about the bones buried in the cellar. Right now! Before Dr. Bradley Donovan insisted on having them all committed to the hospital for the—criminally?—insane.

CHAPTER FIVE

BRAD HAD BEEN THINKING about Beth all day. Though her strange behavior that morning had given him pause, he knew his obsession was much more than that.

He was attracted to her—to her crooked smile, the way her nose crinkled when she laughed, the way her butt looked so damned appealing in a pair of tight jeans. He was attracted and that confused the hell out of him—his father’s disappearance and her possible involvement in it, notwithstanding.

They really had very little in common. She was his total opposite, in every way imaginable. She seemed to live for the moment, while he planned everything out to the last detail. He’d already purchased the funeral plot next to Carol’s and had begun saving for Stacy’s college education. He was a stickler about his clothes; she seemed indifferent to what she was wearing. She always looked nice, just not coordinated.

So what did he find so compelling about her?

Beth was passionate about what she loved—the inn, her aunts and her desire to make something of herself. And he admired that about her, made him wonder if she’d be just as passionate with him in bed. He thought so. There was a lot of untapped desire in Beth; he could feel it.

She wasn’t afraid of hard work. He’d seen her up at dawn, helping out in the kitchen or readying guest rooms when the hired help needed assistance. And she was kind. The times he’d seen her interact with Stacy she’d shown patience and caring, even when his daughter didn’t respond in kind.

The back screen door banged, and he glanced over to find Beth hauling bags out to the garbage cans.

“Need some help?” he asked as he approached.

She gasped loudly and clasped her throat. “You startled me. You shouldn’t sneak up on someone like that. I could have had a heart attack.”

“I’m sorry. I just thought you could use some help.” He nodded at the plastic garbage bags and shook his head. “Shouldn’t you use some ties at the ends? You’re going to spill whatever’s in there into your cans. It’ll make a disgusting mess.” He couldn’t hide his abhorrence, which made her smile.

“I let the garbageman worry about that. What are you, the garbage police? And what are you doing out here? It’s cold, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I was going to walk down to the pond before turning in. Care to join me?”

She hesitated. “I don’t know. I—”

“Come on,” he urged, taking her hand. “Looks like you could use a break. You work too hard.”

Her hand fit perfectly in his and he squeezed it. She didn’t object and followed his lead. “There’s no one else to do the work, if I don’t,” she explained. “There are some days I wonder why I bit off so much, then others when the very idea of owning this place energizes me and makes me happy.”

“I feel the same way about my practice. It’s tiring as hell sometimes, but yet so rewarding.”

“I can’t even imagine what it must be like to save someone’s life.”

He smiled and pulled her down beside him onto a fallen log. “It’s like no other feeling in the world. And it makes all the years of study and hard work worth it.”

“I know what you mean. This place is everything to me. I never thought I could do it. My self-esteem was pretty much shot after my marriage ended. And I’m not really sure I had much to begin with.”

“You don’t seem insecure at all.”

“My mother was very strong-willed and made me feel as if I could never do anything right. I met Greg Randall in college, and his attention bolstered my flagging ego, so when he finally asked me to marry him, I jumped at the chance to defy Mother and get out from under her thumb.”

He nodded. “I take it things didn’t work out the way you expected.”

She sighed. “Marrying Greg didn’t solve any of my problems. If anything, it made them worse. Rather than stepping out from behind my mother’s shadow, I was swallowed up by my husband’s lifestyle and overbearing personality.

“When his infidelities surfaced, my insecurities and self-doubts magnified. And it took years for me to realize that I had married Greg for all the wrong reasons and that I wasn’t as stupid and worthless as I’d been led to believe.