Now and Forever (42 page)

Aunt Beth was out riding when Jessie arose the next morning, and there was a note in the kitchen explaining which horse she could ride if she chose to. She had learned the terrain well enough the time before to handle a ride in the hills on her own now.

Shortly after eleven, she set off on a pleasant chestnut mare. She wore a wide-brimmed straw hat and had tucked a book and an apple into a small saddlebag. She felt like being alone for a while, and this was a perfect way to do it. After a half hour's ride, she found a small stream and tied the horse to the limb of a tree. The mare didn't seem to object, and Jessie took off her boots and went wading. She laughed as she sang songs to herself and unbuttoned her cuffs to roll up her sleeves. She felt freer than she had in as long as she could remember. It was then that she saw the man watching her.

She looked up with a start and he smiled an apology. It was frightening to suddenly see someone in what she thought was her own private wilderness, but he was tall and very well dressed in a fawn-colored riding habit. He spoke gently, and with a British accent.

"I'm sorry. I meant to say something earlier, but you looked so happy, I hated to spoil your fun." She was suddenly glad she hadn't taken off her shirt, which she had been considering.

"Am I trespassing?" She stood barefoot in the stream, one sleeve rolled up, and her hair loosely tied in a knot on top of her head. To him, she looked like a vision. A golden-haired Greek goddess in modern riding dress. One didn't see many women like that--not here in the "provinces." Lost on a hillside, barefoot in a stream. It was like a scene in an eighteenth-century painting, and it made him want to walk down and touch her. Kiss her perhaps. The thought made him smile again as she watched him.

"No, I fear I'm the trespasser. I came out for a ride this morning, and I'm not very familiar with the territory, property boundaries and the like. I daresay I'm intruding." The accent was pure public-school English. Eton, perhaps. The alleged "intruder" was every inch a gentleman. And as she looked at him, it struck her how much he resembled Ian. He was taller, a little broader, but the face ... the eyes ... the tilt of the head ... his hair was very blond, blonder than Jessie's. But still there was something of Ian about him, enough to haunt her. She looked away from him and sat down to put on her boots, carefully rolling her sleeves down first. While the unknown man continued to watch her with a small smile.

"You needn't leave because of me. I have to get home now in any case. But tell me, do you live here?" She shook her head slowly, unpinned her hair, and looked up at him. He was very good-looking.

"No, I'm a houseguest."

"Really? So am I." He mentioned the name of the people he was staying with, but she didn't recall having heard Aunt Beth mention them. "Will you be down here long?"

"A few days. Then I'll have to get back."

"To?" He was very inquisitive. Almost annoyingly so, except that he was so damned good-looking.

"San Francisco. I live there." She had avoided the next question, and now it was her turn. Why not? "And you?" The idea of questioning him amused her.

"I live in Los Angeles. But I'll be moving to San Francisco within the month, actually." She almost giggled as she listened to him. He sounded like all the imitations she'd ever heard of stuffy Englishmen. He was sooo British, standing there on a hilltop in his impeccable riding habit and flicking a riding crop across his palm. He was really quite something.

"Did I say something funny?"

"No, sir." With a half smile, she started up the hill toward him. Her horse was tied quite close to where he stood.

"My firm is transferring me to San Francisco. I came out from London three years ago, and I've had enough of L.A."

"You'll like San Francisco; it's a wonderful town." It was a totally mad conversation between two strangers in the middle of nowhere; they were behaving as though they were on Fifth Avenue, or Union Street, or the Faubourg St. Honore. She burst into laughter as she found herself standing next to him.

"I seem to have a way of amusing you without intending too."

She smiled again and shrugged gently. "Lots of things do that."

"I see." He held out a hand to her then and looked rather solemn, but the smile still danced in his eyes. "How do you do? I'm Geoffrey Bates."

"Hello. I'm Jessica Clarke." Standing under the tree, they shook hands and she smiled at him again. At close range, he didn't look quite so much like Ian. But he was very pretty in his own right, Mr. Geoffrey Bates from London. And he was thinking how much he liked the way she looked when she smiled. And she seemed as though she did that a lot.

He hesitated for a moment before asking her the next question, but he finally gave in. He wanted to know.

"Where are you staying, by the way?" By the way? It made Jessica smile again and then laugh.

"With the mother of a friend." She was vague, and he smiled as he raised an eyebrow.

"And you won't tell me who? I promise not to disgrace you and appear uninvited to dinner."

She laughed back and felt silly, but the Englishman's face had grown serious. He had just realized that she might well be traveling with a man. That would be awkward. He had looked at her left hand almost instantly and been relieved to see it bare of rings, especially plain gold ones. But he hadn't look closely enough to see the little worn ridge or the slightly paler strip where she had worn her wedding band for seven years before removing it a few months before.

"I'm staying with Mrs. Bethanie Williams."

"I believe I've heard someone mention her name." He looked enormously relieved. "Leg up?" She was standing next to her horse as he asked, and she turned to him with a look of amusement.

"Hardly. But should I say yes?" She thought she saw him blush as she swung easily into the saddle. It was a foolish question to ask someone as tall as she was, but then she noticed his height. He was at least four or five inches taller than Ian ... six five? Six six? Not even Ian was that tall ... "not even" ... why did she still think of him that way? As though he were the ultimate man. The paragon of perfection to which all other men would always be compared, in her mind.

"May I call you at Mrs. Williams'?" Jessica nodded, cautious again. This was certainly an unusual way to meet a man, and she really had no idea who or what he was.

"I won't be here for very long."

"Then I'll have to call you soon, won't I?" Persistent bastard, aren't you? She smiled again, wondering. But he didn't look like a bastard. He looked like a nice man. Somewhere in his mid-thirties, with gentle gray eyes and soft silky hair. And the clothes he wore looked expensive. He was also wearing a small gold ring on the smallest finger of his right hand; she thought she could see a crest etched into the gold, but she didn't want to stare. Everything about him looked formal and elegant. With his jodhpurs he was wearing polished black boots and a soft blue shirt with a stock. His fawn-colored tweed jacket hung from a branch and he looked a bit odd in the rugged setting, but at the same time incredibly beautiful. Better and better as she watched him. Which was precisely how he felt about her, although Jessica had begun to wonder how disheveled her hair looked.

"Nice to meet you." She prepared to ride off with a smile and a wave.

"You didn't answer my question." He held her horse's bridle as he watched Jessica's eyes. She knew what he meant. And she liked his style.

"Yes. You can call me." He stepped back in silence and, with a dazzling smile, swept her a bow. She liked that about him too. His smile. And she laughed to herself as she rode off toward the ranch.

"Have a nice ride, dear?"

"Very. And I met a very strange man."

"Really? Who?" Aunt Beth looked intrigued. Strange men were few and far between around the ranch, except an odd foreman here and there.

"He's someone's houseguest, and terribly British. But he's also very nice-looking."

Aunt Beth smiled at the look on her face. "Well, well. A tall, dark, handsome stranger on my ranch? Good heavens! Where is he? And how old?"

Jessica giggled. "I saw him first. And besides, he's not dark. He's blond, and a lot taller than I am."

"Then he's yours, my dear. I never did like tall men."

"I adore them."

Aunt Beth looked over the top of her reading glasses with careful solemnity. "You haven't much choice." They both laughed again and enjoyed a blazing sunset over the hills.

It was another peaceful evening, and Jessica was up at seven the next day. She had a craving to wander, but this time not on the chestnut mare. She made herself a cup of coffee--for once up before Aunt Beth was--and took off as quietly as she could in the Morgan. She had never driven much around there, and she had been itching to explore.

The sun was high in the sky when she found it. And it was in very sad shape. But it was a beauty. It looked as though someone had lost it in the tall grass and then tired of looking for it, decades before. And now there it sat, alone and unloved, with a FOR RENT sign listing badly to one side just beyond the front steps. It was a small but perfectly proportioned Victorian house. She tried the front door, but it was locked. And Jessica found herself sitting on the front steps, fanning her face with her large-brimmed straw hat, smiling. She wasn't sure why, but she felt good. And incredibly happy.

She drove home at fifty on the dusty country road and strode into the house with a grin. Aunt Beth was checking her mail and looked up, surprised.

"Well, where have you been? You left awfully early." There was mischief in the old woman's blue eyes, and delighted suspicion.

"Wait till you hear what I've found!"

"Another man on my land? And this time a Frenchman! I knew it. Dear girl, you're having delusions from the sun." Aunt Beth clucked sympathetically and Jessica burst into laughter and tossed her hat high in the air.

"No, not a man! Aunt Beth, it's a house! An incredible, beautiful, marvelous, Victorian house! And I'm madly in love with it."

"Oh God, Jessie, not the one I think it is? The old Wheeling house out the North Road?" She knew exactly which one.

"I haven't the vaguest idea, I just know that I love it."

"And you've bought it, and your decorator is due in from New York first thing tomorrow morning." Aunt Beth refused to be serious.

"No. I mean it. It's lovely. Did you ever stand back and look at it? I did, for an hour this morning, and I sat on the front steps for almost as long. What's it like inside? It was locked, dammit I even tried all the windows."

"God only knows what it looks like inside. No one's lived in it for almost fifteen years. Actually, it used to be very lovely, but it hasn't much land, so no one will buy it. You could probably get more land with it now, though, because the Parkers behind there just decided that they want to sell off a very nice parcel. Almost forty acres, if I remember correctly. But as far as I know, the Wheeling place just sits there empty. Year after year. The realty people showed it to me when I came down to buy the ranch, but I had no interest in the place. Too much house, too little land, and I wanted something more modern. Why on earth would you want a Victorian house out in the middle of nowhere?"

"But Aunt Beth, it's so beautiful!" Jessica looked young and romantic as she smiled at her friend.

"Ah, the illusions of youth. Maybe you have to be young and in love to want a house like that. I wanted something more practical-looking. But I can see why you liked it." She was noticing the brightness in her young friend's green eyes. "Jessica, what exactly do you have in mind?" Her voice was quiet and serious now.

"I don't know yet. But I'm thinking. About a lot of different things. Maybe they're all crazy ideas, but something's brewing." Jessica looked decidedly pleased with herself. It had been a marvelous morning, and something wonderful had happened in her head or her heart, she wasn't sure which, but she felt alive and excited and brand new again. It was crazy, really. A Bible passage that she had once learned in Sunday school had come to mind as she sat looking at the house. "Behold, old things are passed away. All things are become new." She had kept thinking of that, and she knew it was true. All the old things were drifting out of her life ... even the horror of the trial... even Ian ...

"Well, Jessie, let me know what you come up with when everything's 'brewed.' Or before that, if I can help."

"Not just yet. But maybe later." Aunt Beth nodded and went back to her mail and Jessie headed up the stairs, humming to herself. And then she stopped and looked back at Aunt Beth. "How would I go about seeing the inside of that house?"

"Call the realtors. They'll be thrilled. I don't suppose they get to show the place more than once every five years. Just look them up in the book. Hoover County Realty. Terribly original name." Aunt Beth was beginning to wonder ... but she couldn't take Jessie seriously. This must be a passing fancy, a mood. But it would keep Jessie amused. Just thinking of something other than her own boredom would do her good. One thing was certain--she hadn't looked bored when she'd come in. Not that morning. And certainly not the evening before.

Geoffrey Bates telephoned that afternoon while Jessie was out, and he called again around five, just when she got back. He politely inquired if he could "come around" for a drink, or bring her over to meet the people where he was staying. Jessie opted to have him for drinks at Aunt Beth's. And she was in high spirits.

He was terribly charming, very amusing, very proper, and quite taken with Aunt Beth, which pleased Jessie. But he was even more taken with Jessie, which pleased Beth. He looked even more splendid than Jessie had warned, in a blazer and ivory gabardine slacks, a Wedgewood blue shirt, and a navy ascot at his neck. Terribly elegant, but also very appealing. And they made a spectacular couple, both tall and blond, with a natural grace. They would have turned heads anywhere, just as they looked sitting easily in the living room at the ranch.

"I rode the hills in search of you today, Jessica, and all in vain. Where were you hiding?"