A Date on Cloud Nine (15 page)

“No but—”

“
Please
.”

Betsy sighed. “Okay.”

“I’ll write a letter so Jake pays you the premium back.”

“Whatever.”

Lilly hugged her. “Thanks, girlfriend. Now, get my camera out of that bag, would you? I want Jake to take a picture of the two of us together.”

“Sure. Hey,” she said when the phone rang. “Jake’s outside, you think we should get it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You live here now.”

“Yeah, but nobody knows that yet.”

A couple more rings, though, and Lilly trotted across the hall and picked up the extension in Jake’s room. Even on a weekend, it could be one of the businesses he consulted for or an important networking connection getting back to him.

“Hello?”

“Sorry, I must have the wrong—Ooh, is this Lilly
Marquette
?”

Shoot, how much did he want others to know?
Her “yeah” was slow and tentative.

“Hmph. I forgot you were moving in today. Have Jake call me. This is Jessica, his sister.” No
Can’t wait to meet you
.

On the other hand, no
Where the hell’s my brother’s three million dollars?
either.

“Sure.”

The phone rang again before Lilly got out the bedroom door, probably a product of the well-organized Murdoch grapevine. Knowing she probably was going to get interrogated by one of Jake’s sisters, she nevertheless picked up the receiver.

Her hello didn’t get an immediate response, and she was just about to hang up when she heard it.

“Get out,” a voice rasped, bitterly enough to make Lilly shiver. No way this was a sister. “You don’t belong there.”

“I
cannot believe this!” Up in Transition, Elizabeth was fit to be tied. She was pacing in tight little agitated turns, but it wasn’t helping.

“Need some assistance?” John asked when he appeared.

She’d never get her own division if she kept running to him for help.

Perusing his electronic clipboard, John murmured, “Hm, I see. Money issue. Second man.”

“Can she not catch a break?”

“It’s just like I always say; people don’t know what they really want until they’re forced to think it through.” John was his usual cool and calm self as he pushed a few buttons, examining new information. “Hm, seems there’s a few minutes missing here.”

It wasn’t as if Elizabeth didn’t have a few friends in high places who’d cover for her, though she didn’t want to press her luck too often.

“Wait a minute,” John said, looking surprised. “What’s this threatening phone call?”

“My point exactly.” Elizabeth wanted to stamp her foot and yell, but it just wasn’t dignified. “I have half a mind to go back, uh, go down there and—”

“Oh, no no no,” John said. “Mustn’t do that. Rule number twelve-oh—”

“I need a clipboard.” Fretting and pacing wasn’t getting her anywhere, so she quickly matched her demeanor to John’s, adopting silence and a calm, angelic outward appearance.

“Now, Elizabeth, if we gave a clipboard to every angel who thought she was cut out for this job—”

“Please, just let me borrow yours.” She stopped short of batting her eyelashes, because of course that wouldn’t work on John.

“I’m afraid not.”

“Five minutes, that’s all I ask.” She smiled oh, so sweetly. “Five minutes to look into what’s going on down there and why. Please, John. Just five minutes to find out who made the phone call.”

“No.”

“But how else can I help Lilly? You know she deserves it.”

“Does she?”

“Oh, John,” she coaxed softly, “that’s not fair. Why can’t we help her? Just a little.”

“The rules have served us well. Stick to the plan and keep mentoring her with the bracelet a while longer. Things will work out if they’re meant to.”

“But wouldn’t it help to find out who made the phone call? And what her plan is?”

“Even if you did, you couldn’t tell Lilly.”

Elizabeth wanted so badly to chew her fingernails, a habit she’d broken generations ago, but it would send the wrong message. “But if I knew something else, something important, perhaps I could warn her—you know, with the bracelet.”

“Stick to the rules, and you’ll be fine.”

A simple, “Alarm, seven o’clock,” before retiring alerted the computer to wake Lilly on time Monday morning.

She hadn’t lost any sleep over the nasty phone call. Maybe her own heavy breather had made her immune, but she just didn’t think somebody would be threatening her over Jake after only eighteen days. Had to be a wrong number. She dropped off quickly to Enya and woke up to Native American flutes.

Jillian, a.k.a. Murdoch sister number three, stopped by after dropping her kids at school. She came in the back door, scowled at Lilly, and Jake dragged her off to another room. After that, she smiled tightly and said she came to borrow a purse. Lilly might’ve bought that except Jillian dashed upstairs and darted from room to room until she discovered which one Lilly’d moved into. She left without anything except news, and Jake’s devilish twinkle.

“Sorry about that,” he said.

“Either she has a split personality or you read her the riot act.”

He grinned unabashedly. “My family’s a little mad at you.”

“Nah, it’s more than that. I’m the woman who’s moved into your house. They want to check me out.”
See what
room I’m sleeping in
. “It must be great to have siblings care about you that much.”

He cocked his head and studied her curiously, but only said, “Yeah. It is.”

By eight-thirty, they were in the taxi, windows rolled up tight against another cold front, headed to North County so Lilly could look over a crisis intervention center that had received high praise.

In spite of her asking for anonymity lately, the grapevine had been buzzing. She barely had to say, “Hi, I’m Lilly Marquette—” and people fell all over themselves to show her the highlights of how their organization or awareness program or foundation was helping others.

News crews were on hand twice. After that, she warned prospective recipients that if the media showed up, she wouldn’t. They just slowed her down, and it was hard enough giving so much money away, she didn’t need to smile about it and answer stupid questions about why she was doing it, like “Does it have anything to do with being poor yourself after your father’s business failed?”

As if her father would want to be reminded.

“Does it have anything to do with your uncle leaving his airplane to you when you really needed it?”

How did people get that kind of information?

The downside of living with Jake was that the car hadn’t lost its overnight chill before she joined him. Mooch tried to climb in his lap for warmth, and when Jake pushed him off, he decided Lilly’s lap would do. She would’ve pushed him off, too, but he was toasty, so she let him stay. As a reward, he treated her to a rare purr,
which she had to admit made her feel abundantly warm and cozy.

At the first turn, a lady’s wristwatch slid along the dash from Jake’s side to hers. She caught it as it went airborne. “Somebody leave this?”

“I did some work on it over the weekend for Rachel. She’s one of my regulars.”

“A gizmo, as Susannah calls it.”

“Yeah. I couldn’t finish it until my fingers healed, so it’s late. If she doesn’t call me soon, I want to drop it off at Shaw’s Garden. She works there. You don’t mind, do you?”

“I haven’t been there in ages. I wouldn’t mind walking through the Linnean House while you do that.”

“Missing your atrium already?”

“I have—well, I
had
an extremely rare
Camellia chrysantha
that blooms later than the rest.”

“So stop by and see it.”

“I’d rather not go back. The Linnean House should have one.” She held up the watch. “You mind if I wear it until then? I forgot mine this morning, and that way it won’t fly off and get broken.”

“Go ahead.”

Admiring Jake’s hands as he drove, Lilly didn’t know how he maneuvered such large, strong fingers into intricate work at
any
time. While they’d be an advantage hoisting stones at custom home sites, which is probably where he’d developed them, they’d only be a hindrance working on a ladies’ watch.

She buckled the brown leather band snugly on her wrist. It wasn’t her usual style, a bit on the bulky side, but
since it was covered by her coat sleeve most of the time and she was just wearing it to be functional, who cared?

“How do you work with something so small?”

“Expensive tools.” Jake merged onto the highway, then studied her, his eyebrows drawn together with concern. “You look tired. Wasn’t the bed comfortable?”

“It was fine, thanks.”

Rather than move his stuff out of the hall bathroom, he’d given her sole run of the one in his parents’ master suite. There were more automatic features in there for his mother, like a motion-detector light that worked after dark—red, so it wouldn’t interfere with night vision when she exited. The sink faucets operated on a sensor, same as the kitchen. She’d needed a crash course in how to work the shower, as it had a row of controls where she had only to pass her hand over one higher or lower to change the temperature accordingly. Very user-friendly for an older woman with arthritic fingers.

Lilly hoped their son would be as thoughtful, not just toward her, but toward women in general.

Our son
—now that had a nice ring to it, ever so much nicer than
my baby
.

“You have trouble adjusting the temperature for sleeping?”

“No, it was fine. Just”—she sighed—“busy dreams. Not bad, you know? Just confusing. Like it’s me, and it’s Cloud Nine, and it blows up, but then things get confusing. Sometimes I’m not even caught in the building, I’m standing out on the lot with you and Betsy, watching it burn. Sometimes the paramedics take me to the hospital. Sometimes I stand up and walk away.”

With you
, she thought, but no sense scaring him with a
commitment issue yet, just in case he wasn’t the type. Since he’d never married, he must be.

“Sometimes I’m flying through a perfectly beautiful sky, then for no reason I lose control of the plane. Not mine; a different one. Can’t get my feet on the pedals, or the stick’s frozen. You know, classic lack-of-control stuff. So it’s not the room, or the temperature, or the bed. It’s me.”

She lifted the most recent dessert pan off the dash. Mooch grumbled at the disturbance.

“Those aren’t the usual,” Jake warned.

“Tired of Orgasms?”

His smile was brief, but genuine. “I did something for Tom. You know, the guy I filled in for the day you and I met. Susannah’s spread the word that I can be had for chocolate.”

Oh, if only that were true.

“They’re brownies with cherries in them, I think.”

Lilly groaned appreciatively, especially since they’d already been cut and all she had to do was lift one out and start in on it.

“I don’t think I even want to know the name.”

Jake’s grin was wicked with possibilities. “His wife said if we like them, we can name them.”

We
. His neighbors already thought of Jake and her as a
we
?

“Oh God, this is so good.”

“Is that your breakfast, or should we stop somewhere?”

“Stop somewhere.”

“You know, I’ve never met a woman who eats like you do.”

“You mean because I don’t count calories?”

“Calories, hell.” He shook his head in amazement. “You don’t even count meals.”

“But everything tastes so good.”

She silently debated whether everyone who got a second chance experienced the same thing. Halfway through the second brownie, her cell phone rang.

“Lilly, Andrew. Hey listen, I just got off the phone with Neidermeyer.” Neidermeyer was her broker. “He says you’ve been moving a lot of money lately, and I was just wondering how you’d feel about investing some back into the business?” In other words, Quit giving it away.

Anyone who watched the news knew she’d been moving something, somewhere, but Neidermeyer knew how much, and it sounded as if he’d shared. So much for confidentiality.

Lilly bit her tongue to keep from telling Andrew exactly how she felt about his intruding in her financial affairs. Marquettes were firm believers in
It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.
Just wait’ll she got a hold of Neidermeyer!

“Tell you what, Drew, I’ll think about it.”

“Because we can see you get a really good return on your capital, probably better than anything you’re getting now.”

“Let me think about it, okay?”

“If you’d like to get together sometime, I can show you some numbers.”

“Drew!”

Startled, Mooch flew off her lap and cleared the back of the seat without even grazing it. Lilly’d grown pretty fond of the tumble-dried cat. Being deprived of his warm snuggle just irritated her that much more.

“Let me think about it.”

“Oh.” Andrew sounded surprised, as if he hadn’t thought of
that
. “Okay. How about I pick you up at five to sign the contract on the house, and you can let me know then?”

“Fine.” Irritated as hell, Lilly snapped the flip phone shut. “Change of plans.”

Jake was grinning, probably pleased that she was pissed at a guy he didn’t like. “Well, I know where we’re
not
going.”

“Right. I want a new broker. Andrew and my current one are a little too close, if you catch my drift.”

“Mm, meddling, huh?”

“Oh”—she laughed with resentment—“so beyond meddling.”

“If that’s how you feel, how’s your estate planning?”

“Done.” Didn’t matter anyway, it would all be gone in a few months. But if she didn’t meet her deadline, the bulk of her money wouldn’t go where it would do the most good. “Now that you mention it, I should have my attorney rewrite my trust. My parents don’t want my money. Betsy’s fine.” Technically, she wouldn’t
have
to because the deal would be broken, but since Transition, she’d found she actually liked helping people who really needed it. “I’ll set aside three million for you, too.”

His head nearly swiveled off in surprise. “No!”

“The road, Jake.
Watch the road!
”

He swerved back into his lane. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the thought, but I can just see you getting blown up again. I’d be the prime suspect.”

“Don’t be silly. You’re already the prime suspect.”

“Me? Why?”

“Revenge, of course. For Brady screwing you out of the money in the first place.”

“I’m sure he had his reasons.”

“That’s awful big of you. I’d be pissed.”

“Well, he saved my life, and I’m not.”

It never ceased to amaze Jake what loads of money could accomplish. He’d witnessed it often enough with Brady.

“You need it yesterday, Jake? No problem.” And whatever he needed and hadn’t been able to get through normal channels was overnighted to him.

“The airlines are booked and you need to go to Santa Barbara? No problem.”
Pfft
—one ticket, waiting at the counter.

Now Lilly had the same one-button power. At least she didn’t flaunt it, she saved it for when she really needed it—ha! A brief visit with a new broker who Lilly was sure had no business with the Marquettes, and
pfft
—millions moved to a new firm. A brief phone call with her attorney, and
voilà
—her appointment was in one hour to review an updated trust. By lunchtime, she was done, except for returning later to sign the final copy.

He didn’t dwell on his own circumstances as a former, wrongfully removed beneficiary. And then he realized two things.

One, if Brady had consulted him, Jake would’ve agreed, even encouraged him to change the beneficiary on his policy. As much as he loved Lilly, she was Brady’s wife, and it would’ve been all Jake could ever give her.