The Legacy: Making Wishes Come True (2 page)

Jenny wrinkled her nose. “I want to do something grand with my life. As my father did.”

“You want to join the Peace Corps?”

“Perhaps. Would you miss me terribly if I went off to Africa or South America?”

“I’d miss you terribly.” He winked, not wanting her to guess how much he would miss her, how much he
did
miss her and had missed her during the past year, when he’d been away at college.

Jenny crossed her arms defiantly. “Honestly, Grandmother treats me like I’m still a child. Doesn’t she see how much I’ve changed? You think I’ve changed, don’t you?”

She had changed all right. He remembered the first time he’d ever seen her. She had been a child of eight, crying at the side of her parents’ graves in an old New England cemetery. He had been twelve and had felt sorry for her. Since then, she’d grown from a child into a woman. He thought her beautiful. And very desirable.

He hated himself for the attraction he felt toward her. It wasn’t right. They’d practically grown up together. He was twenty. She was sixteen. But he’d been fighting his growing feelings for her for over a year. He’d even gone off on a sailing trip at Christmas trying to keep his mind—and hands—off her.

He couldn’t have her—even if there were no age difference. She was a Crawford, the light and life of his father’s oldest and most powerful client. He was a nobody, with no purpose and direction for his life, and he certainly didn’t have the social background her grandmother wanted for her. “Yes, you’ve changed,” he said, answering her question. “Boston society never had it so good.”

“I don’t want Boston society,” she said stubbornly.

He stopped the car at the gate of Marian Crawford’s summer home, and the security guard opened the car door for Jenny. “See you Saturday,” he said. He watched her walk away and noticed an enormous red, splotchy bruise on the back of her shapely leg. “You should have those bruises checked out,” he called.

“Don’t worry about me. Just worry about how you’re going to get me to forgive you for running off with some other girl this afternoon.”

He started to confess that there was no other girl. That he’d made the whole thing up. It was all a lie,
but a necessary lie. He couldn’t have her know how he felt about her. “We’ll go sailing next week,” he said.

She brightened. “Promise?”

He reproached himself for caving in to his desire to be with her. “Promise.” He put the car into gear and quickly drove away.

“G
OOD MORNING, SLEEPYHEAD
. I was beginning to think you weren’t going to join me for breakfast. And you know how much I enjoy starting my day with your company,” Marian Crawford said as Jenny entered the breakfast room.

Jenny bent and kissed her grandmother’s cheek before taking her customary place. The brightness of the morning sun spilling through the windows hurt her eyes. Her whole body ached, and although she’d slept fourteen hours, she felt as if she hadn’t slept at all. Her joints hurt, and she felt lightheaded, but she forced herself to ignore her aches and pains. It was Saturday, and she was hours away from being with Richard. She wasn’t about to let a bout of the flu keep her away from something she’d been anticipating for days. “I guess I did oversleep.”

“Aren’t you feeling well?”

Jenny sipped her orange juice as her grandmother’s
eagle eyes studied her. “It’s summer. Can’t I be lazy if I want?”

“You’ve never been lazy before. I’ve practically had to tie you down to keep you in the house during the summer.”

“Maybe I’m changing. Maybe I like the idea of lying in bed until noon.”

Marian smiled wryly. “And maybe cows will sprout wings and fly to the moon.”

“Oh, Grandmother, stop worrying about me.” Jenny spread honey on a piece of dry toast and hoped that she could force it down. She didn’t want any more health questions from her grandmother. In truth, she was concerned about the way she’d been feeling lately. More unexplained bruises had popped out. One on her hip looked especially gruesome, yet she honestly couldn’t remember banging into anything that might have caused it.

Her grandmother poured herself a cup of tea. “You know we’ll be dining at the Club tonight.”

“I haven’t forgotten.”

“It’s the twenty-eighth wedding anniversary of the Holloways, and since Richard Senior has been my right hand in business all these years, this dinner is the least I can do to help them celebrate.”

Jenny knew little of her grandmother’s business affairs. She knew that her grandfather had died before she’d even been born, leaving control of his Boston bank to his wife. She knew that her father, Warren, their only child, whom she barely remembered, was supposed to have been their sole heir. But something had gone wrong between Warren and his mother, and he’d moved to London and married Jenny’s mother, a British girl; together, they’d joined the Peace Corps. Jenny had been born in Uganda.
When she was seven, both her parents had died in a freak train wreck, and she’d come to the United States from Africa to live with her grandmother.

“I understand Richard’s son will also be joining us,” Jenny heard her grandmother say. “I trust you won’t be too bored.”

“No. He and I’ve been friends forever. I don’t mind spending an evening with him.”

“He’s so much older than you.”

“Four years isn’t ‘so much older,’ ” Jenny insisted. She felt her cheeks color when her grandmother gave her a penetrating stare.

“Is that all you’re eating?” Grandmother changed the subject.

Jenny had placed the uneaten piece of toast onto her plate. “I don’t want to spoil my appetite for dinner tonight.”

“But that’s hours from now.”

“And I don’t want to get fat.”

“Hardly a problem,” her grandmother said, eyeing Jenny carefully. “If anything, you’ve lost weight. Now, tell me you aren’t going to turn into one of those self-centered girls who are always counting every calorie, are you?”

“You’re not exactly a typical portly granny, you know,” Jenny teased. Her grandmother was tall and slim and regal in her bearing.
True Bostonian nobility
, Richard had often remarked.

“Don’t be impudent,” Marian scolded, her blue eyes twinkling. “ ‘Portly’—the very idea! I’ll have you know that none of my friends fit that kind of granny stereotype.”

Jenny rose and dropped her linen napkin on her untouched plate of scrambled eggs. “And none of mine pig out when they know they’re about to face
a seven-course dinner. I’ve got some things to do today, and I need to get moving.”

“But your breakfast—”

“See you later.” Jenny dashed out of the room and into the hall. She made it to the staircase before a wave of nausea overtook her. She swayed, steadied herself, and groaned inwardly. She didn’t want to be sick. She wanted to feel good and look good for Richard. She gripped the banister and slowly walked up the stairs. Maybe a little nap would help.

She went to her room and slid beneath the sheets of her canopy bed; in minutes, she fell into a fatigued and dreamless sleep.

Jenny felt no better by dinnertime.
But no worse either
, she insisted to herself as she dressed in a yellow sundress that dipped off her shoulders. She hoped that Richard would think her pretty and sophisticated, not simply the “kid next door.” All through dinner, she struggled to keep her mind on the conversation, but found it difficult to concentrate.

“Why don’t the two of you dance,” Mrs. Holloway suggested, snapping Jenny out of her stupor. “No use being trapped at the table with us.”

Jenny wished that Richard had asked her of his own accord, but decided not to quibble over the fine points. What did it matter how she ended up in Richard’s arms, just so long as she did?

“Come on, Jenny.” Richard stood and held out his hand.

Jenny felt her grandmother’s gaze follow them to the dance floor, where she glided smoothly into Richard’s arms. She thought she fit there perfectly.

“I don’t think Dame Marian approves,” Richard said.

“Of our dancing? Why shouldn’t she?”

“I don’t think she approves of
me.”

“Don’t be silly. She likes you and always has.”

“We’re too old to be playmates,” Richard cautioned.

Jenny didn’t understand what he was trying to tell her. Perhaps he was feeling coerced into spending the evening with her, instead of out with a girl he really liked. “How’s it going between you and your father?”

“Don’t ask.”

Richard seemed in a bad mood, which made her feel all the more like a nuisance. “Could we go out on the patio?” she asked. “It’s stuffy in here.”

He pulled back and studied her. “You look a little pale. Maybe we should sit down.”

“Some fresh air should do it.”

He led her outside onto a flagstone patio lined with stone benches and strings of colored lights. A faint breeze carried the scent of the sea. He took her to a bench near a low stone wall and settled her down.

She breathed in deeply, hoping the evening air would clear her head. Just her luck. A romantic corner in the moonlight with Richard, and she didn’t feel well.

“Better?” he asked, sitting beside her and taking her hand.

Her pulse reacted to his touch. “Better,” she said.

He loosened his tie and opened the collar of his shirt. “I’d rather be out sailing.”

“Me too.” She didn’t add that sailing over a gentle sea under a star-studded sky alone with him would be her idea of heaven. “Maybe we could go out some morning next week.”

“I don’t think I can make it.”

She bit back her disappointment. Why was he
avoiding her? She thought of other summers when they’d been inseparable. He was the one who’d taught her to sail. “You promised we would. Are you angry with me? Did I do something to offend you?”

“Of course not.” He stood and paced to the wall and peered out into the darkness. “Dad wants me to be a runner in his firm this summer. He says it’s time I learned to appreciate hard work.”

Jenny knew that a runner was a lowly job that called on the employee to do detail work and odd jobs for attorneys in a law practice. “But you said you weren’t interested in becoming a lawyer.”

“I’m not, but it doesn’t seem to matter to my father what I want to do. He won’t listen to me. He’s determined that I attend law school once I finish my undergraduate work.”

“So that means you’ll be working all summer?”

“Right up until the fall term starts. It also means he and I will be commuting to Boston for the summer.

Commuting meant that Richard would be living in the city during the week and only coming out to the island for weekends. Suddenly, her idyllic summer stretched in front of her like a long, lonely road. “Isn’t there any way you can get out of it?”

“Only if I want to be cut loose from the family.” Jenny stood, wanting to be closer to him, wanting to hold on to this slice of time in the moonlight. The movement was too quick, and she swayed. Richard caught her. “Hey, what’s wrong? Are you ill?”

She felt lightheaded and clutched his arms for support. “I—I don’t know …”

The world around her tipped and swayed, and she felt as if she were tumbling into a deep well. Richard’s arms lifted her as darkness engulfed her.

“H
OW LONG HAVE
you been experiencing these symptoms, Miss Crawford?”

“I’ve been feeling sick for a few days,” Jenny answered. She lay in the local emergency room while a doctor poked, prodded, and asked questions. She felt acutely embarrassed. It was bad enough to have fainted in Richard’s arms, but it had caused a scene at the country club when the ambulance had come and picked her up. She knew her grandmother was beside herself out in the waiting room. At least the Holloways were with her. She grimaced, knowing that she’d spoiled their anniversary party.

“Did I hurt you?” the doctor asked as he rotated joints in her arms and legs.

“I’m a little sore,” she confessed.

“And these bruises—how long have you had them?”

“I’m not sure. A couple of weeks. They just keep showing up. I guess I’m clumsier than I thought.”

“I don’t think you’re clumsy,” the doctor said.