Believe in Me: A Rosewood Novel (8 page)

Ahh, Owen thought. Was this the motive behind Nonie’s hostility? “What happened?” he asked.

“It was some silliness on the Internet. Total nonsense, nothing more than an adolescent prank. But the principal took Jade’s side. No doubt he was dazzled by Margot’s celebrity status when she went in and pleaded for her sister. So Jade got off scot-free while the other girls were suspended. As I said, she’s a real troublemaker. Jordan’s making a terrible mistake letting Jade around her children—” She paused to pop the last of her cheese stick into her mouth. “But that’s the problem with Jordan. Too trusting by half.”

At the mention of Jordan, Owen, who’d been doing his best to tune Nonie out, focused. “She didn’t strike me as the overly trusting type.”

“Terribly gullible, the poor thing. It took her until she was halfway through her pregnancy with her third child to realize that her husband, Richard Stevens, was carrying on a very steamy affair with a junior associate in his office. A friend of a friend who works in Richard’s firm told me all about it. Truly torrid stuff.”

Owen was still digesting the first bit of information. Jordan Radcliffe was the mother of three? Impossible. Three kids? he repeated silently. Jesus H. Christ. Owen had sensed she was complicated, but obviously he hadn’t guessed the half of it. It wasn’t enough for a woman like Jordan Radcliffe to have “emotional commitment required” written all over her, the sign should be accompanied by flashing lights and alarm bells. To get involved with someone like her—a divorced, cheated-on mother of three—would be pure folly, and Owen didn’t consider himself a foolish man. It was definitely time he nipped his fascination in the bud.

Thankfully Nonie had moved on, too, her spite once more directed toward the youngest sister, Jade. “The girl’s an absolute hellion, and Margot and Jordan do nothing to keep her in check. After the ruckus she caused at Warburg High,
instead of punishing Jade as she deserved, do you know what Margot did? She organized a photo spread in
Vogue
for the three of them to appear in, like they were the princesses of the county. Typical Radcliffe ploy,” she sniffed.

So that explained why Jordan had been in the pages of
Vogue
. He wondered whether he still had the issue filed away somewhere.

“Well, I can’t imagine there’ll be many more photo shoots for them to parade about like royalty. Travis is bound to put a bun in her oven pretty soon. Without Margot’s contracts, no one believes they’ll be able to hang on to Rosewood. The horses would be their only means of income, and horse breeding is such a risky business. I very much doubt Jordan will have the kind of success she needs to make a go of it as a decorator. Standards are so high here. A shame, but what can you do?”

With friends like these, who needed enemies? He decided then and there that if Nonie wanted to stick it to her dear friend Jordan, she’d do it without his help. He rose from the sofa. “I really have to hit the road. Thank you for lunch, Nonie.”

She walked him to the front door. “So you’ll tell your decorator what I want done with the cottage?”

“I’m afraid there’s a slight problem with this plan. Emily Carlson, the interior decorator at our firm, is booked solid for the next six months.”

“Six months?” Her voice rose in disbelief. “I can’t possibly wait that long. I have guests coming in mid-July. Surely you can arrange to schedule me sooner, as I’m such a good client—”

She was positively deluded if she thought that. “We value all our clients equally. And we base our reputation on keeping our promises to them. Now, seeing that Emily won’t be able to satisfy your needs, perhaps you should reconsider your reservations about hiring Jordan Radcliffe. Bye, Nonie.”

T
HE CHAMPAGNE
they opened at dinner was delicious, the sense of accomplishment at having gone out and presented her ideas well to none other than Nonie Harrison and under such intimidating conditions, even more so. Jordan had done a good job, and she’d done it all by herself. She smiled into her champagne glass and took another sip.

“So the Barrons sold Hawk Hill,” Travis said. “That’s a nice piece of land. I hope this guy—what’s his name again, Jordan?”

Her smile faltered. “Owen Gage.”

“Right. Gage. I hope he’s open to the idea of our riding on his property.”

“I doubt he’ll care very much,” she answered. “It’s not as if he’ll be living at Hawk Hill or even keep the property for very long. Once the construction crew has finished the renovations, he’ll put it on the market. It’ll doubtless sell quickly.”

“I remember going to Hawk Hill for the Barrons’ Christmas caroling party,” Margot said, spearing a halved strawberry with her fork. “The house was so pretty. It’ll be a real shame if it loses its character for the sake of keeping up with the twenty-first century.”

Jordan gave a quick shake of her head. “That’s not how he works. He’s scrupulous when it comes to preserving architectural styles. Nonie’s cottage looks wonderful.” No matter what she thought of him as a person, Owen Gage’s talent for restoring old homes was beyond reproach.

“Well, if Jordan likes him, that’s good enough for me,” Travis said.

“I didn’t say I
liked
him—”

Luckily Jade spoke up, relieving Jordan from having to define how she felt about their new neighbor. “Since you guys are too uptight to let me have any champagne, I’d like another slice of Jordan’s angel food cake. And a big spoonful of the whipped cream, too,” Jade held her plate out to Travis, who obligingly cut her a thick slice before passing her the bowl of whipped cream. “Cheers, Jordan,” she said, lifting a large forkful in the air. “Here’s to getting Mrs. Harrison, the Witch of Warburg, to hire you. She gives me the evil eye every time she sees me. The last time she did it, though, I stuck my tongue out at her.” Opening her mouth wide to accommodate the whipped-cream-topped slice, she chewed with a happy grin on her face.

“That’s extremely mature, Jade,” Margot said. “Speaking of mature, I ran into Officer Cooper at the gas station. It seems somebody’s signed him up for a Doughnut of the Month club. You happen to know anything about that?”

Jade turned a shade of pink that exactly matched her hair. Instead of answering, she forked up another enormous bite of cake and chewed busily.

Margot pursed her lips. “Brilliant. It’s always a good idea to antagonize the local police.”

“Maybe if he’s eating doughnuts, he’ll stop writing totally undeserved parking tickets,” she muttered thickly.

“Totally undeserved parking tickets, did you say?”

Jade speared another piece of cake. “Totally,” she insisted.

“Well, I sincerely hope you aren’t blowing all the money you earn on designer doughnuts and god-awful dye jobs.” Jade received a salary for helping to train and exercise the green horses at Rosewood, and Jordan paid her a weekly fee for the riding lessons she gave Kate and Max. “Because if you don’t pay your parking fines, you can bet Officer Cooper will be very happy to stick a boot on your car.”

“I paid them. Now if only Robocop would quit driving around town looking to ticket me.”

“Oh, please! Warburg may be small, but I’m going to guess that
Officer
Cooper has a couple more pressing matters than targeting your mom’s Porsche.”

“Yeah, like scarfing down doughnuts.”

Margot rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Jade—”

Travis cleared his throat, but when he spoke his voice carried more than a hint of laughter in it. “So, Jordan, when do you think you’ll start on the cottage at Overlea?” he asked in an obvious attempt to steer her sisters away from what had become a hot-button issue: Jade’s willingness to rile Rob Cooper, the officer who’d busted the underage drinking party last year and brought her home in the back of his police cruiser.

Jordan followed Travis’s lead. “With summer coming I assume Nonie will want me to order fabrics and papers as quickly as possible and get the work crew assembled. I’m calling her tomorrow to set up our next appointment.”

“We’re all thrilled for you,” Margot said, mercifully dropping the subject of Jade and Rob Cooper. “To celebrate, Jade and I will do the dishes, while you check on the kids.”

“I don’t think I have to worry about them sleeping. Thanks to Miriam playing tag with them most of the afternoon and then Jade giving them a super-hard riding lesson, they were zonked by bath time. Olivia was asleep before her head hit the pillow.”

“Then maybe you’d like to come down to the broodmares’ barn and check on the mares and foals?” Travis suggested.

Jordan smiled. The night check on the broodmares was one of her favorite chores. “I’d love to.”

Seated beside Travis, Margot leaned over and touched her lips to his. “I’ll do my Pilates mat while you’re doing the barn check.” As it was spring, the fashion magazines were gearing up for the coming fall fashions, and Margot was already
getting bookings for shoots. The discipline Margot demonstrated to keep her figure as lithe as a gazelle’s was amazing. But in Jordan’s opinion, even more than maintaining her lean physique, it was the glow of unalloyed happiness Margot radiated since she and Travis married that enhanced her beauty and fueled her modeling career.

When Travis reached up to stroke the side of Margot’s face and then twined his fingers in her hair to draw her closer and offer a kiss of his own, Jordan and Jade exchanged looks. Silently they rose from the long kitchen table.

“Jeesh,” Jade said in an undertone as she turned the faucet on and began rinsing one of the pans before placing it in the dishwasher. “One minute they’re fairly normal and then
wham
. Do you think they’re ever going to get tired of all that stuff?”

“Not if they’re lucky.” At moments like this she really felt for Travis and Margot. It couldn’t be easy to have her, Jade, and the kids around all the time. If her sister and brother-in-law were alone right now, she seriously doubted they’d be limiting themselves to a few kisses. Fortunately, the house was big and their bedroom suite offered them a private haven. She thought back to Margot’s comment about how she and Travis loved the bed she’d selected for them when she’d redecorated their room. An image sprang to life in her mind’s eye, of herself wrapped in a man’s arms—a man who bore a startlingly uncomfortable resemblance to Owen Gage. Her cheeks grew hot with acute embarrassment.

It was hours since the lunch at Nonie’s and Owen was still bothering her. Her cheeks burned even hotter as her wayward imagination offered yet another scenario: his strong body covering hers, pressing her into the soft mattress.

“Jade, tell Travis I’ve slipped outside to get some fresh air.” Please God, let the cool evening air clear the very graphic fantasy that had formed in her mind—not that there was anything wrong with fantasizing, just as long as Owen Gage didn’t play a starring role.

“Sure,” she said, glancing up from the pot she was scouring. “Hey, you look funny. You’re not sick or anything?”

“I’m fine. It was probably that second glass of champagne,” she said, seizing the most obvious excuse.

“A real lightweight, huh?”

“Something like that,” she replied.

The broodmares’ barn, with its spacious double stalls, was softly lit and comfortably snug from the heat of the horses’ bodies. It was especially peaceful at this hour, the mares’ snorts and whickerings, the rustling of the straw bedding muted and occasional. Like Jordan’s own children, the new foals, some barely a month old, were almost all asleep, worn out from their day romping in the fields under their dams’ watchful eyes.

Jordan and Travis were standing in front of Allure’s stall, watching the mare and her new foal, who was lying quietly in the straw, inches from her hooves. A protective mother, Allure didn’t leave her colt’s side. And having already foaled five offspring, she was used to the routine of the evening barn check, aware that the humans would depart shortly.

Although the foal’s fuzzy ears twitched, it continued to lie quietly on its side, its spindly legs folded neatly against its belly, its ribs rising and falling with each breath. Jordan wasn’t surprised to see the three-week-old colt dozing so soundly. This morning he’d been tearing around the pasture with all the spirit of his sire.

They had named the colt Grayson. His sire, Stoneleigh, had been a magnificent dapple gray Thoroughbred, their father’s favorite stallion and Rosewood’s top stud for the past twenty-two years. Last spring he’d covered Allure but now he was enjoying a well-earned retirement. They had high hopes for this last of Stoneleigh’s get, and equally high expectations for the foals sired by their new stallion, Nocturne.

They shut and latched the stall door and then moved on
to the next stall, where Margot’s own mare, Mystique, and her foal, Cascade, were both on their feet. More curious than Allure, Mystique ambled over to them. Cascade followed, his chestnut ears swiveling back and forth like a radar.

“He’s going to be a real beauty,” she said. “And so big. He’s the largest of the foals, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, he should reach seventeen hands easily. We’ve already had some interest in him—Tim Mitchell came by this afternoon.”