First Impressions (Edenton 1)

“Wrote a bodice ripper?”

“Hey!” Eden said. “Don’t disparage those novels to anyone in the publishing industry. They’re our meat and potatoes. You know who’s the most powerful person in publishing?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “It’s the woman in the grocery store who throws a book into her cart. She decides everything.”

Jared blinked at her a couple of times. “Two speeches in two days.”

Smiling, Eden glanced down at her plate. “The point is that I didn’t see anything in the manuscripts that might reveal the secrets of some spy. But maybe he didn’t write about that. Maybe he wrote something else and he wanted me to edit the book.”

“I don’t think he wrote anything. And, no, I don’t have any concrete reasons for thinking that, except for being in this business nearly thirty years. The writer-editor angle doesn’t smell right to me.”

“Thirty years. You’re older than you look.”

Jared started to defend himself, then smiled at her. She was teasing him. “More pancakes, or are

you afraid Granville won’t like you if you gain a pound or two?”

Eden ignored his jibe. “This morning I decided that the sooner this mystery is solved, the sooner you’ll leave and I can fully participate in what is shaping up to be an interesting life.”

Jared put his hand to his heart. “You’ve injured me, but, basically, I like that idea.” He looked down at the pancakes on the griddle. “You know, don’t you, that I could be thrown out of the bureau for telling you all this.”

That statement made her angry. “I guess they just want a helpless victim who gets shot at, tied up, then rescued by the big strong hero.”

“It’s the way I usually work,” he said solemnly. “I don’t mind the rope burns but I hate the duct tape.”

Eden laughed. “First of all,” she said, “I want to know your theories on this. If you think this has nothing to do with Applegate wanting to get a book published, what do you think it does have to do with?”

“This house,” he said quickly. “Maybe it’s about those sapphires that I don’t think were ever sold. Treasure hunters can be fanatical.”

“I guess we can’t very well show Applegate’s photo around town, but maybe we could show a picture of the agent who was killed. Or at least ask questions about her.”

“We,” Jared said, smiling and looking at her, his eyes soft.

“So help me, McBride, if you start making passes at me, I’ll…”

“You’ll what?” he asked, his eyes teasing.

She grimaced. “I’m not going to play word games with you. Take the pancakes out to the men who aren’t there, then come back in and we’ll look at the documents you have.”

For a moment Jared stood there, looking as if he was trying to decide whether or not to show her anything. “You’re certainly a bossy little thing, aren’t you?”

“When you’re a single mother, you have to be. You can’t say ‘Wait until your father gets home.’ You have to be mother and father to your child, so you learn to be the boss.”

Jared looked at her for a moment, then turned away and picked up the pancakes. He put the plate and the butter and syrup on a tray, added some big glasses of orange juice, and went out the door.

As Eden turned toward the stairs, she caught sight of herself in the black glass door of the microwave. She still had rollers in her hair.

An hour later, Eden was in the dining room, surrounded by gardening books and grid paper. She’d told McBride that she thought that the best person to ask about the agent was Minnie and she was sure she’d see her this afternoon when she met with Brad. Between now and then, Eden planned to make some sketches for ideas for eighteenth-century–style gardens. “I don’t need hours, I need days to do this,” she said in a half whine.

“Good,” McBride said, ignoring her plea for a pep talk. “That’ll give me time to do some things.” He didn’t elaborate.

He helped her haul the books from the cabinet in her bedroom downstairs to the dining room where she could spread out. When he saw her pad of twenty-year-old paper, he smiled but said nothing. Once everything she had—but not all that she needed—was in place, he went upstairs. She could hear him walking about now and then, and a few times heard him on his cell phone. And Minnie called him three times on Eden’s house phone. The first two times, Eden answered the phone, but the third time it rang, she yelled for McBride to get it. It was Minnie.

Eden went through books that were like old friends to her. When she opened them, they vividly reminded her of the time when she’d lived there with Mrs. Farrington and Melissa. It was odd to so clearly remember herself then and to think of herself now, and to look at all that had happened to her in her life. When she’d lived there she’d never thought much about the future. That’s what happiness did to a person, she thought. It made them content. If it had been left to Eden, she would have stayed there forever.

She looked up from her book at the ceiling molding. It had been repaired and now, except for a couple hundred years of wear, was as good as new. She looked about the room and could almost feel Mrs. Farrington there, could hear her voice, could see her smile as she held Melissa on her lap and told her stories about the Farrington family. Smiling, Eden looked about the room. As always, the late-nineteenth-century paintings of Tyrrell Farrington were on the wall. They weren’t good, but they weren’t bad either. Talent aside, Tyrrell had been as fanatical about his family as Mrs. Farrington was. He had painted a history of the family. There were ancestor portraits done from life and from the memories of old relatives, as well as four paintings of the house itself, each from a different angle. It was interesting to see how plants had grown. The pecan trees were still there, only much bigger. Tyrrell had never married and had lived in Farrington Manor all his life. When he was a young man he’d gone on a Grand Tour that lasted over three years. Mrs. Farrington said that if his mother hadn’t faked a heart attack, and his father hadn’t cut off his allowance, Tyrrell would have spent the rest of his life in Paris. Instead, he’d returned home, sulking and sullen, and had spent the rest of his life painting. Now the walls of the old house were covered with his work.

Eden looked back at her papers.

“How’s it coming?”