“Repaired?” the mover asked, his brows raised.
“Maybe I should back the truck into the house,” the second man behind him said. “Looks like it would only take a nudge to topple it.”
The first man, taller, bigger, the one who owned the truck, frowned as he looked down at Bailey. He was about twice as big as she was, and he’d always felt protective toward small things. “Maybe there’s someplace else we could unload the truck until you get this place fixed up. You got any friends with a big garage, maybe?”
Biting her bottom lip, Bailey shook her head no. No friends, she thought, and didn’t dare meet Phillip’s eyes. She knew he was standing there waiting for her to “come to her senses,” that universal male phrase meaning that she was to agree that he was right and do whatever he wanted her to.
The second mover seemed to think better of making any more negative comments about the derelict old house. “Why don’t you put the furniture in the barn?”
Bailey’s head came up. “Barn? What barn?”
The man pointed toward a dense growth of trees. Barely visible was what looked liked the peak of a building that had once been painted red. “Either that’s a barn, or it’s a fire station ready and waitin’,” the man said.
No one laughed at his attempt at humor, but Bailey instantly set off through the undergrowth, one arm across her face for protection, the other one pushing aside hanging vines and bushes that blocked her path.
“Remind me not to tip you,” Phillip said to the man who’d pointed out the barn, then he went after Bailey, the two movers following him.
It was indeed a barn, not a hundred yards from the house. There was no path cut through the underbrush, so getting to the building had been difficult. Bailey had three long, bloody scratches on her left arm.
It wasn’t a huge barn, not something that kept dozens of horses and cows. It was more of a “gentleman’s barn,” a place to store farm implements and maybe one or two horses.
Bailey was struggling to slide the heavy door open when the others arrived and the two movers stepped forward to help her. The hardware on the door was heavy-duty, but it had rusted from disuse. As Phillip stood to one side, his mouth a tight line of disapproval, the movers and Bailey pushed until the big door slid to one side. A thick gush of dust and dried straw came rushing out of the barn and set the three of them coughing.
“When was this place last opened?” the second mover asked, leaning over and hacking to clear his lungs.
“I have no idea,” Bailey answered, straightening up and taking some deep breaths. “I never saw this place before about an hour ago.”
“You bought it without seeing it?” the man asked, his voice letting her know that he thought she was this year’s number-one idiot.
“Inherited,” Bailey said over her shoulder as she looked into the barn. Sunlight came in through a high window, but it took her eyes a few moments to adjust. Inside were a few bales of dried-out hay, some horse harnesses hanging from a board wall, and a few broken shovels hanging on another wall. Toward the back she could see some empty horse stalls. All in all, the place looked in better condition than the house. At least the roof had held, and there was no sign of water damage.
She turned to the others. “We’ll put the furniture in here.”
“And how do you propose to get it back here?” Phillip asked, nodding toward the way they’d come. There was no path, much less a drive that a truck could use.
For a moment, Bailey had no answer, then she smiled. “Isn’t that car you bought me four-wheel-drive? We’ll make a path.” With that, she turned and went down the narrow space that their four bodies had made in the weeds.
The first mover walked behind Phillip. “When a woman is as determined as that one is, you might as well give up,” he said softly, then chuckled when Phillip ignored him.
Hours later, the barn was full of crates and boxes and furniture wrapped in packing blankets, and Bailey had given the men a fifty as a tip.
“You can’t afford to do that kind of thing now,” Phillip had said as soon as the men drove away. “If you must give a tip, make it a small one.”
Bailey walked ahead of him, back toward the house, and she kept her head high. When they reached the house, Phillip caught her arm. “Lil—I mean, Bailey, we have to talk. You can’t stay here alone. This . . . this . . . ” He couldn’t seem to think of any words bad enough to express what he thought of the forsaken old house. All he could think of was the life that Bailey had lived for as long as he’d known her: servants, palaces, silk sheets. Like Carol, Bailey had spent most of her days having various beauty treatments. “For you to stay here is like Marie Antoinette playing at farming,” he said in frustration. “You don’t know anything about the kind of work that a place like this requires.”
“Actually, I don’t know much about anything, do I?” Bailey said softly, looking at him in the fading daylight. “But what is my alternative?”
“I’ll take care of you,” Phillip said quickly. “I’ll buy you a house, I’ll—”
Bailey narrowed her eyes at him. “Do you mean that you’ll use the money you received from James Manville to buy me a house, and then you’ll”—she was advancing on him—“you’ll put me in it and keep me very well? Is that what you had in mind? Like Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater?” When she was nearly nose to nose with him, she lowered her voice. “Or do you intend to try to take Jimmie’s place? Is that what you think? That one man kept me, so now another one will? Any ol’ man? You maybe? Are you thinking that since I lived in seclusion with one man for sixteen years, it will suit me perfectly well to live in seclusion with you as the head of the harem?”
Blinking, Phillip stiffened his spine and stepped backward. “That’s not what I meant at all. This house is not livable.”
“No, it’s not,” she said, her face full of anger. “But you know what? It’s mine. I figure I earned it, if for nothing else than for all those hideous parties Jimmie made me attend where everyone watched—and commented on—every bite I took.” When she saw him flinch, she took another step forward. “Did none of you think that I heard you? You whispered behind my back that I was fat and not pretty enough to be worthy of a dynamic man like Jimmie. You said—”
“Not me,” Phillip said softly. “I never said anything like that, so don’t try to make me out to be the enemy.”
“Then why are you working for Atlanta and Ray?” she shot at him, then closed her mouth. She hadn’t wanted to say that, hadn’t wanted to let him see how she felt about what he was doing.