“I like that Terel; she reminds me of myself, and I can’t bear to stay and watch what her fat sister is going to do to her.”
“You’re sure Nellie’s heart is full of hatred?”
“Very sure. I know my fatties. Now, what do I have to do to give her her three wishes?”
Pauline sighed. “Declare it, nothing more.”
“Okay, fatso, you get three wishes for what you really want. Sorry, Terel.” Berni waved her hand in the direction of the screen. “Now,” she said to Pauline, “what other rooms are in this burg? How about the Luxury room?”
Pauline gave a backward glance at the screen, sighed, then led Berni through the archway toward the hall.
Chapter Three
Chandler, Colorado
1896
Jace Montgomery dismounted his horse, threw the reins to the boy waiting outside the Taggert mansion, and went inside. The butler didn’t even rise from his chair but kept reading his paper, only glancing up to nod in Jace’s direction.
“In his office?” Jace asked.
The butler nodded again and kept reading.
Jace knew the man didn’t consider him a guest. In the butler’s opinion there were guests and there were relatives, and Jace was a mere relative. As Jace walked through the big, mostly marble house the place rang with the sound of people, and the noise made him smile. The house sounded so much like his home in Maine.
His father’s big, very old, sprawling house, set but feet from the ocean in Warbrooke, Maine, always echoed with the noise of his Montgomery and Taggert relatives, and in the background was the constant music made by his mother and her friends.
After his wife died Jace couldn’t bear the happiness around him. He couldn’t stand to hear children laughing or see couples looking at each other with love. A month after he buried Julie and his three-day-old son he’d stepped on a train, and for four years he’d been traveling, just traveling, doing nothing else. He had met few people, not wanting ever again to care for another human being, and he’d kept to himself.
But about six months ago he’d started to recover, started to be able to think of something besides his own grief. He went to California and visited his mother’s parents and spent some time with the old mountain men who lived on his grandfather’s ranch.
It was while he was visiting Grandpa Jeff that his Aunt Ardis started writing him and nagging him to visit his Taggert cousins in Colorado. He gave in when he found out his cousin, Kane Taggert, and his wife were going to be in San Francisco. Jace took a train south and introduced himself. He found Kane to be as gruff-voiced and as generous-hearted as the Taggerts in Maine, and they became quick friends. Jace also fell half in love with Kane’s beautiful wife, Houston.
The Taggerts had returned to Colorado, Jace had gone back north to spend a few more weeks with his grandparents, then he’d started the journey to Colorado.
He’d taken his time traveling, and it was at one remote stop that he’d met Charles Grayson. During a sleepless night Jace had looked out the window to see a couple of thugs trying to rob a man. Jace was off the train in seconds, and a couple of well-placed fists easily dispersed the thieves.
Charles had been very grateful, and once on the train he’d started saying he needed a man like Jace to work for him. Jace didn’t bother saying he didn’t need a job or want one; he just listened to Charles talk about himself and his beautiful daughter. When Jace found out Charles lived in Chandler, he decided to visit the Grayson family and so accepted a dinner invitation.
Once in Chandler Jace had quite suddenly become very homesick, and, knowing Charles was at his freight office, he’d gone to the Grayson house an hour too early for dinner. He wanted to see this daughter Charles said was such a paragon of grace and beauty.
Within ten minutes of meeting Nellie he agreed with everything Charles had to say about her. She was kind and warm and funny, and for the first time in four years he found himself talking about his wife’s death. It had been so pleasant to sit in the garden with her and break beans. She hadn’t been flirtatious like so many women were. Instead, she’d blushed like a schoolgirl, and that beautiful face of hers had made him feel better than he had in years.
It was with disbelief and no little horror that he’d heard Charles Grayson cursing Nellie when they’d returned to the house. For a moment Jace had been too stunned to react. Charles had talked of nothing else on the train except his lovely daughter, yet here he was acting as though he were ashamed of her.
> Still confused, Jace had sat through a long, boring dinner in which Nellie didn’t say a word but her sister never stopped talking. It took Jace some time to realize that when Charles spoke of his daughter, he meant the younger one. As far as Jace could remember, Charles had never even mentioned that he had two daughters.
By the end of the meal, Jace began to understand what was going on. It seemed that both Charles and his younger daughter thought Nellie was fat. Jace looked at her, and indeed there was a bit more of her than there was of some women, but she didn’t look like more than he could handle.
He looked at the younger sister, the one who was supposed to be so talented and so beautiful, and all he heard was the word I. Terel seemed interested only in herself, and she assumed that others were interested, too.
The meal seemed to go on forever, and he could hardly wait to get away from Charles and his vain daughter. He’d escaped as soon as he could and gone through the back gate. He’d guessed correctly that Nellie would go to her garden. Being alone with her in the garden was as pleasant as he remembered. Before he knew what he was doing, he’d agreed to work for Charles—a man of whom his opinion was now much lower—if Nellie would go to the Harvest Ball with him.
He smiled now as he walked into Kane’s study. He meant to get more out of Nellie than a couple of dances.
Kane was bent over his big desk with his friend and partner, Edan Nylund, a man nearly as big as Kane but as blond as Kane was dark. Playing on the floor, tumbling about like puppies and making as much noise as a couple of steam engines, were three children ranging in age from one to three. Two were dark, one blond, so Jace guessed that two of them belonged to Kane and one to Edan, but he couldn’t tell the sex of the children.
“Hello,” Jace shouted over the noise of the children.