First Impressions (Edenton 1)

It had taken nearly thirty minutes to get Mr. McBride across the garden that separated their houses, then up the stairs to the guest bedroom. Eden knew that he was doing all that he could to slow their progress so he would have time to ask her lots of questions.

He seemed to want to know all about the history of Arundel and Farrington Manor in particular. On the surface, it seemed a normal bit of conversation, but something didn’t ring true. If he knew absolutely nothing about the area, what had made him decide to come here?

And another thing: not only did he not ask her a single personal question, but he always deftly managed to change the subject when she asked him about himself. Eden grew suspicious.

“This is so very nice of you, Ms. Palmer,” he said as he slipped into the bed in the guest room. “I’m not used to Southern hospitality, but it seems to be all that people have said it is.” Reaching out, he put his hand over her wrist, then lowered his voice. “You seem to be so nice.”

“Mr. McBride,” she said.

“Call me Jared,” he answered, smiling at her in a way that she was sure had won the hearts of many women. In spite of a black eye and a deeply scratched cheek, he was still quite handsome.

“Mr. McBride,” she said firmly, “I invited you to stay here out of a sense of guilt because of what I did to you. There’s no more to it than that. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said meekly, sliding down under the covers. “I could never hope that a woman as fine as you—”

She gave him a look that said, Cut out the bull.

With a little smile, he closed his eyes and pretended to rest.

Eden went downstairs to clean up the kitchen, and when she’d finished, she treated herself to a call to her daughter. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Fine,” Melissa said quickly. “Oh, Mom, I don’t mean to be rude

, but could we talk later? Stuart took the afternoon off today and we’re going shopping for our new apartment. I mean, your old apartment. Sorry, I don’t mean to be throwing you out. So how is Arundel? Sleepy as always?”

Eden could hear the impatience in her daughter’s voice. She wanted to get off the phone to be with her husband. Eden tried not to be hurt by this attitude, and she had to work hard not to try to get her daughter to focus attention on her. She wanted to say that she’d attacked a burglar, been rushed to the hospital in an ambulance, then had invited the burglar to move in with her. But she didn’t. “Sure,” Eden said. “Same ol’ same ol’. Nothing ever changes here. Go with Stuart and have a good time. If you need any money, I—”

“Mother!” Melissa said stiffly. “Stuart can certainly support his own wife and child.”

If I give him a furnished apartment for less than it costs me to rent it, Eden wanted to say. It seemed that after your children married, you did a lot of biting your tongue. “Of course he can, dear,” she said. “Go, have a good time.”

After Eden hung up the phone, she stood there for a few moments. She and her daughter had been everything to each other. Not even her daughter’s marriage had been able to break the bond between them, but now…Eden didn’t want to think what was happening, but she knew that the umbilical cord was at last being cut. “That’s good,” Eden said aloud. She and her daughter were too attached to each other. During the year they’d been separated they had barely been able to function, so now, at last, they were separating. And that was good. Wasn’t it?

Eden took a deep breath and turned away from the phone. She had an urge to call her daughter back and say she was returning. She had an urge to call her publisher and ask for her job back. She had an urge to…

She stopped walking. She decided to go upstairs, wash her hair, and spend an hour and a half getting ready for Brad’s visit tonight. He was moving much too fast, assuming too much too soon, and McBride…Truthfully, she didn’t know what to make of that man. Both men wanted something, but until she found out what it was, maybe she could enjoy herself.

Chapter Five

“DO you think that’s wise?” Brad asked tightly. “I don’t mean to criticize, but do you really think you should let a strange man move into your house?”

“He isn’t strange, remember?” Eden said, her back to Brad so he wouldn’t see her smile. “Your friends at the police station ran a check on him. I was told that Jared McBride is a full-fledged hero. Considering that I was his assailant I thought that the least I could do was put him into a place where I could take care of him.” She turned to look at Brad, batting her mascaraed lashes. “Did I do wrong?”

Brad started to answer, then grinned. “Am I right in thinking that you’re telling me to mind my own business and that it’s your house.”

“More or less,” she said, pleased that he understood. She unwrapped the pecan-encrusted trout from the foil packages that Brad had brought from Soundside, the seafood restaurant that was steps from his office.

When Brad took plates out of the glass-doored cabinet, Eden noted that he seemed to know where everything was. He said he’d often visited Mrs. Farrington, but that they’d never become true friends; yet he seemed to have visited often enough that he knew his way around the house well. Had he been telling the truth?

He carried the dishes into the dining room and set the table. “So how long is McBride staying?”

Eden ignored his question as she put the fish onto the plates. She’d steamed green beans and made a salad. “Tell me everything that’s happened in Arundel since I left here twenty-two years ago. Who got married, who died, who had babies? Any scandals?”

It took Brad a few moments to get his mind off the man Eden had invited into her home, but when he did, she found that he was a wonderful storyteller. As far as she could tell, Arundel hadn’t changed much. But then, its residents fought hard against change. When Wal-Mart wanted to put in a store on the outskirts, the company met with so much protest that they slunk away in silence. The residents were quite willing to drive a hundred miles to buy goods, just so their pretty town wouldn’t be polluted with ugly, modern stores. Brad’s three last names were an example of the residents’ dislike of change. All of his names came from the founding families of Arundel. Mrs. Farrington told Eden that there were certain names that were all over Arundel, on the street signs, on the buildings, on the businesses. The families had started the town and, for the most part, had never left it. The children still carried the old names, and they still left for college, but they returned to Arundel with spouses from good families to live in the family home, then bear children who were given three last names. Anywhere else it might be unusual to meet a girl named Haughton or Pembroke, but not in Arundel. The names were a permanent calling card, a way to let people know who they were and where they fit into history. Some people thought the whole idea was pretentious and snobbish, but others swooned over the historic continuity, which was so rare in the United States.

As Eden looked at Brad across the table, she thought how well he fit into the old house. It was as though he was a reincarnation of his ancestors who had often visited the place and had twice married into the Farrington family. When he poured her a glass of wine, she smiled at him and he smiled back. She felt comfortable with him.

“Okay,” Brad said, “I know I’m too pushy and too forward, and I know that I’ve been taking liberties with you, but you have to realize how much Mrs. Farrington talked about you.”