Kelly’s day was filled with small accidents, things that needed to be fixed, questions that needed answering, places she needed to keep the public away from. She didn’t have enough hands to cover everything.
“The china is authentic to the house,” she told a woman wearing jeans and heels high enough that her back should hurt. Opening the cabinet, she took out a dinner plate and turned it over. Imprinted there was the date and name of the pattern.
“My,” she said. “I’m impressed. My grandmother had this pattern and I’ve lost a lot of them. Would you be willing to sell any of these.”
Kelly could truly use the money, but she couldn’t part with the history of the house. Smiling sweetly at the woman, she said, “I’m sorry, but they are part of the Kendall. The house wouldn’t be the same without them.”
The woman smiled, handed her a card and said, “If you change your mind, I’m interested.”
Kelly slipped the card in a pocket, said good day and went off to the next emergency. By noon, the place was crowded, but the college students she’d hired seemed to be handling the traffic with skill. Kelly had to rush out to the ticket counter and provide more money to make change for entry fees. By one o’clock they were running low on pastries.
Kelly didn’t see Jace and Ari return. She was too busy. As she came down the stairs with an armload of flyers, she stumbled at seeing Jace. His arms came out and quickly caught her.
“Where do you want these?” he asked, taking the flyers from her hands.
“Gift shop, by the exit,” she said.
He left her, heading for the door with Exit written over it. Stunned for only a moment, before someone called for her attention, she wondered what had brought him back early. And where was Ari?
Jace turned and looked at her from the doorway. She silently thanked him with a smile and a nod. Surprisingly, several of the people she used to work with at the PR firm in New York, including her ex, Perry Streeter, showed up. “Your big debut! We’ve been anticipating this for some time now,” Perry said.
“Oh, have you?” Kelly asked flatly. The small group of six were standing in the front parlor as crowds milled around them.
“Certainly,” Perry said.
Kelly’s frustration was growing. She had no wish to encourage Perry on any level.
“I noticed a brochure in the Maryland House as I was traveling several weeks ago,” Cass Martin said. She was good at what she did. And Kelly had called her a friend while they’d worked together. But since Kelly had bought the Kendall, Cass hadn’t so much as called her cell phone. “You’ll have to excuse me,” Kelly said. “I have a lot to do.”
“No problem, we’ll talk after the tour,” Perry said.
“Enjoy yourselves,” Kelly called as she left them. What could they want? They didn’t travel all the way from New York to see the Kendall. Did they expect her to fall on her face? And wanted to bear witness to the deed?
“Who are they?” Jace asked indicating the group from New York.
“My former colleagues from the advertising firm where I used to work.”
“What do they want?”
“I haven’t any idea,” she said. “I’m more surprised than you that they showed up here. I can’t imagine there’s anything to gain.”
“Maybe they’re here to see you fail,” Jace suggested.
Kelly’s head came up quickly. She’d had the same thought.
“Don’t worry. We won’t let that happen.” He winked at her and left to go see to whatever was needed.
We, Kelly thought. Are we a we?
She didn’t have time to ponder that. One of the guests came up to her, a very tall statuesque woman with dark hair. She wore long pants, a short-sleeve blouse and a man’s vest. On her feet were expensive leather boots.She looked every bit the horsewoman.
“You’re the new owner, right?”
“Kelly Ashton.” She offered her hand and the woman shook it.
“I knew your father. He’d be so proud of what you’ve done with the Kendall.”
“I’m sorry. Your name?” Kelly asked.
“Oh, Susan Johnson. I used to work at the same farm where he worked.” Susan’s smile was warm and affectionate. “I was one of the people who exercised the horses. Of course, they never let me race one, but I always wanted to.”
“I know what you mean,” Kelly confided. “I love the feel of the wind when I ride.”
“One night just as the sun was setting, your dad came to me and said one of the horses needed exercising. I thought it was strange, since I usually did this in the morning. But he led me to the track. There was a horse already there. It was Silver, a golden palomino. I’ll never forget it. He told me to get in the saddle and to ride it as fast as I could all the way around the track three times.”
Kelly was smiling and tears collected in the corners of her eyes.
“Do you still ride?”
“I own a horse farm in Kentucky, but when I heard the Kendall was opening and an Ashton was responsible, I couldn’t stay away.”
“Thank you,” Kelly said.
“No, thank you. And thanks to your father. I’ll never forget him.” She patted Kelly’s hand, kissed her on the cheek. “I signed the guest book. You’re ever in Kentucky, please come and see me.”
She sounded sincere. “I will,” Kelly told her. With a smile, she went back to her tour.
The crowd began to thin around five. Kelly was dead tired, but she was also exhilarated. She didn’t know if they’d broken even according to her budget for day one, but she’d made at least five trips to the ticket counters to provide change for the entry fees. People left smiling and carrying boxes of the baked pastries to their cars.
As Kelly waved at a couple leaving, she was surprised to find her New York friends still there.
“I thought you’d gone hours ago,” Kelly said, going to where they stood.
“We wanted to talk to you,” Perry said.
“About what?”
He looked around. “Do you think there is a more private place we can go?”
“My office,” Kelly said. It was clean and clear of any debris. She wanted them to know that she had a neat mind and a neat office, even though six people would make it crowded.
Cass closed the door after the last of them came inside.
“I apologize for the space. I rarely have more than a couple of people in here at a time.” She rarely had anyone in there. Jace had come and Ari. The modeling agency sent a crew, but they wanted to walk the property and scout locations. Mainly the place was her sanctuary.
“All right,” Kelly began. “Let’s have it.”
“What?” Perry asked.
“What’s the real reason you’re here. This is an awfully long way from Madison Avenue. And you six didn’t make this trip to look at an old house.”
“You’ve done wonders with it,” Cass complimented. “From what I hear the place was a relic and you’ve brought it back to life.”
“And I love the costumes,” Alex Wheatly said. Alex had been her friend, giving her advice and keeping her abreast of the office gossip. It was Alex who informed her of Perry Streeter’s promotion over her. And it was Alex who let her know that the account she’d been working on was leaving the agency.
“So you like what I’ve done with the place,” she said, trying not to allow the sarcasm she felt to filter into her voice.
“We like the marketing ideas you used to get this place up and running,” Cass said.
“They were nothing short of brilliant,” Perry added.
“Thank you,” Kelly said. There has to be a shoe ready to drop, she reminded herself. Kelly looked at them, allowing her gaze to settle on each face before she responded.
“The truth is, Kelly, we want you to come back to your old job,” Perry said.
Kelly was stunned. “Return?”
“You’ve done a great job here. This will undoubtedly be an ongoing concern for some time,” Cass explained. “But don’t you miss the drumbeat of New York? You were right there with the best, coming up with the ideas, working with the staff.”
Cass handled a lot of the advertising at the firm.
“Everyone liked you,” Alex said.
“But according to you—” Kelly looked directly at Perry “—I lost the Grissom account. As I remember it, something in the neighborhood of six million dollars.”
“Grissom is back,” Alex interjected. “And they want you.”
“Me, why?”
“When they left us, they didn’t know what they were doing. We, and by that I mean you, gave them more customer service and better ideas than anyone else. So they want to work with us—you—again.”
Kelly grinned. She understood. There was a six-million-dollar contract with a provisional clause in it.
“I’m sorry,” Kelly began. “I have other obligations.”
“Where?” Cass asked. “Here?”
“Yes,” Kelly said, her brows rising. “Here.”
“You’ve done an amazing job, but to handle the Grissom account...” Cass left the sentence hanging as if there was no contest between what she’d spent the past two years doing and what they were offering.