Family Secrets Page 3

  Amanda smiled. “Well, there’s good news and bad news.”

  “Somehow I was afraid of that.”

  “We’ve got a lovely bookstore, just a few blocks away. But it’s already closed for the day.”

  The liquid brown eyes were full of hope. “And you know the owner’s home phone number?”

  “Yes,” Amanda admitted. “I also know that he plays softball every Monday evening, so –”

  “Damn.”

  The switchboard chimed again, with an internal call this time. As Amanda picked up the phone, Jessamyn Arden’s suite number appeared on the computer screen. Please, not the air conditioning again, she thought. It was August, and though Springhill was overdue for a heat wave, the weather had been pleasant and not at all humid. To tell the truth, Jessamyn would probably be more comfortable if she’d shut the air conditioning off and open the windows.

  “I want a new television delivered,” Jessamyn announced.

  There were two in her suite; surely they hadn’t gone on the blink simultaneously. “Which set are you having a problem with, Miss Arden?”

  “Both of them. They’re too small. I can hardly see the screen.”

  For one mad instant, Amanda considered suggesting that Jessamyn have her eyes checked. Instead, she said calmly, “Those are the largest we have in the hotel, but I’ll see if I can get a different set for you first thing tomorrow.”

  Jessamyn Arden didn’t even respond; she simply hung up.

  Chase said thoughtfully, “You aren’t going to dig into your bag of home phone numbers for Jessie? I’m sure you know someone who sells televisions.”

  Amanda eyed him warily. He sounded calm enough, but if she said the wrong thing now and he mentioned it to Jessamyn Arden or the producer, there could be all kinds of backlash. “If I didn’t reserve panic calls for emergencies, I wouldn’t have any friends left,” she admitted. “And since the televisions she’s got are both working, I thought...”

  “I hope you consider books an emergency,” he said earnestly.

  “Look, Mr. Worthington, I can’t call the softball field because there isn’t a telephone.” She saw the twinkle in his eyes and started to laugh. “All right, you can cut out the manipulation. I’ve got a library of my own – I’ll bring up some books for you later.”

  “Later?”

  “After the desk clerk gets back from her dinner break. I can’t just go off and leave the inn to run itself.”

  “That’s very sweet of you, to take the trouble to go home and bring things back for me.” His smile was very different than the one she’d seen before. This one was soft and intimate – as if they shared some very special secret.

  Amanda swallowed hard. Don’t look at him, she ordered herself. Then she couldn’t possibly get in trouble. Surely if she didn’t look at his mouth any more, she wouldn’t wonder what it would be like to kiss him – would she?

  “It’s no great effort,” she said. She hoped he wouldn’t notice the breathless edge to her voice. “I have an apartment on the second floor.”

  “You live right here in the hotel?”

  She nodded. “It’s part of my job to be available most of the time. What sort of books do you like?”

  He leaned against the desk and parried, “What have you got?”

  “It’s a pretty wide assortment. Do you like mysteries? Best-sellers? Non-fiction?”

  He nodded. “All of them,” he said simply. “May I be really rude and ask to browse?”

  Amanda hesitated. But what real reason did she have to refuse? She could hardly tell Chase Worthington she was afraid to be alone in a room with him – he’d no doubt find that revelation plenty amusing. And though she had long been convinced that the contents of a person’s bookshelves revealed his character in a way nothing else – short of psychoanalysis – could, she could hardly tell him that, either. It would only pique his interest, and that was the last thing she wanted to do. The kooky way she reacted to him was bad enough, but surely it would pass in a day or two; there wasn’t any point in making things worse by rousing Chase’s curiosity.

  No – now that she’d admitted the existence of her library, she’d better be graceful about letting him use it. He wasn’t interested in anything more than a suspenseful novel to while away a dull evening, anyway.

  “Oh, why not?” she said, almost to herself. “I’ll call you when I’m free.”

  “I’ll just wait. I haven’t anything better to do.” He perched on the counter.

  “You might enjoy a walk around town. It’s completely safe, even after dark.”

  He shook a finger at her. “Careful. Someone might think you’re trying to get rid of me.”

  Amanda gave up. The desk clerk would be back in a few minutes anyway.

  Only when Tricia returned did Amanda realize that taking Chase up to her apartment would make a wonderful tidbit for the inn’s grapevine, and by then it was a little late to fret about it. Rather than wait for the elevator, she took him up the service stairs behind the registration desk.

  “Not the most elegant corner of the building, is it?” Chase observed.

  The staircase could use a fresh coat of paint, she realized. Funny how easy it was to miss that sort of thing, when one saw it every day. On the landing, she pulled open the fire door.

  Chase looked down the long paneled hallway. “How old is this place, anyway?”

  “It was built about the turn of the century.”

  “Well, overall it’s in much better shape than it was four years ago.”

  “Yes, we’ve done a great deal of work in the last couple of years. The suites are all new, and most of the rooms are larger.”

  “Are you a partner?”

  “No, just the manager. But I’ve been allowed almost a free hand by the owners, and I’m very proud of what we’ve accomplished. An inn in a town this size isn’t often a profitable venture, but we’ve done some innovative things.”

  “For instance?”

  He really sounded interested, Amanda thought. “Well, since we had more space than the hotel business demands, we’ve added a number of apartments for permanent residents – like this one.” She unlocked the door and led the way into a cozy sitting room with a gas-log fireplace and a kitchenette tucked in the far end.

  Chase paused on the threshold. “It looks just like my suite. The floor plan, I mean.”

  Amanda nodded. “It’s on the same corner of the building. Up on the top floor, however, you can look out over the town and the river and the surrounding countryside. Down here, I have a view of the air conditioning plant and the delivery entrance.” She smiled. “That’s why the apartment is rent-free to the resident manager. I’m not complaining, you understand – the walls are so thick even midnight garbage pickups don’t disturb me.”

  In a large wire cage in the corner of the sitting room, a bright-eyed blue parakeet leaped onto a swinging perch and let out a wolf whistle. When Amanda didn’t answer, he tipped his head to one side and said tentatively, “Play ball?”

  “Later, Floyd,” she said, as she opened a door at the side of the sitting room and flicked on a light switch.

  The smaller of the two bedrooms had been converted to a den. Two walls were lined with adjustable bookshelves, and a small desk gave her a place to retreat when the office downstairs was too busy for concentration. A rocking chair occupied a corner, and a convertible couch provided an extra bed for guests. At the moment, however, there was no space for it to be pulled out, for taking up the entire center of the room was a standard-sized baby crib.

  Chase looked from it to the rocking chair to the low shelves full of children’s books. “You have a baby?”

  She thought she heard the barest hint of incredulity in his voice. And was it her imagination, or was he really looking at her ringless left hand, which was hovering at eye level as she reached for a book from the nearest set of shelves?

  “I kept a friend’s toddler over the weekend,” she said. “The bellman was
supposed to take the crib back to the storage room today, but apparently he didn’t have time.”

  “Jessamyn kept him too busy stowing her bags, no doubt.” He didn’t sound interested any more, and his gaze slid over the books. “Good heavens, that’s the earliest Dr Seuss I’ve ever seen. Is it a first edition?”

  “Probably.”

  “What do you mean probably? Do you know what it’s worth, if it is?”

  Amanda shrugged. “I don’t really care. I like the book.”

  “Well, that’s an enlightened view of collecting.” He moved on to a higher shelf. “I haven’t seen a copy of this in years, either.”

  “There is some order to the way things are arranged,” she began.

  He didn’t look up. “No, don’t tell me. I’m having too much fun just exploring.”

  Amanda leaned against the door and watched as he moved around the room. She had expected him to head straight for the bright-colored paperbacks – the thrillers and best-sellers and mysteries, the kind of thing he’d have found at the bookstore. But he seemed more interested in the older volumes – not classics necessarily, but the kind of books Amanda had held onto because she might want to reread them someday.

  He settled for an old whodunit and a collection of short stories, and looked longingly at a shelf which held an astounding array of recent political histories. Amanda pulled a volume down and handed it to him.

  He looked at the cover and smiled. “Thanks. You’re a lifesaver, Amanda.”

  She hesitated, wondering if he had noticed what he had called her. Names don’t matter, she told herself. And neither did this tiny favor. He might read a few of her books, but it didn’t make them friends – and she’d be wise to remember that. She snapped the light off and pulled the door shut.

  The parakeet glared at them and grumped, “Dirty bird.”

  Chase paused and looked at the cage. “What did you say his name is? Floyd?”

  Amanda nodded. “Odd name for a bird, isn’t it? He’s actually Pretty Boy Floyd.”

  “He’s named for a criminal?”

  “I suppose so. Don’t look at me, I’m not the one who chose it. He belonged to one of our long-term residents who died last winter.”

  “And you inherited the bird?”

  “Well, someone had to take care of him. I’d known Mrs. Henderson for years – since I started cleaning her apartment when I was in high school. So I knew all her birds, too, and –”

  “I thought you’d only come to town recently.”

  She was puzzled for a moment. “No. I grew up in Springhill.”

  “But if you weren’t here four years ago when we did Winter of the Heart...”

  She had said that, but she hadn’t expected that he’d remember. Apparently Chase Worthington was a better listener than she’d given him credit for being. Amanda kept her voice level. “I was away at college. By the time I came home for the summer, the production was finished and all the excitement was over.”

  Floyd shrieked and demanded, “Play ball!”

  “Sorry, Floyd, there are no games on television tonight.” Amanda saw a smile tug at the corner of Chase’s mouth. “It sounds pretty strange to reason with a bird, doesn’t it? Baseball is one of his favorite things. Mrs. Henderson was a big fan, and Floyd not only imitates the umpires, but he whistles the first seven notes of The Star-Spangled Banner.”

  “I’ll bite. Why exactly seven?”

  “I suppose it’s all his attention span could absorb. It’s enough to drive one absolutely mad, since seven notes isn’t a whole phrase and it ends on a ghastly high note that leads nowhere. Think about it.” She opened the door. “Enjoy the books, Mr. Worthington.”

  He stopped in the doorway. “Don’t you think you should stop calling me that?”

  Amanda could feel the flutter of a pulse in her throat. “Any special reason?”

  “Because it makes me sound like a stranger, and I’m sure you don’t usually loan your books to people you don’t know. Good night, Amanda.” He strolled off down the hall, softly whistling The Star-Spangled Banner. He paused after the seventh note and started over once more.

  That was no surprise, she thought. Floyd had struck again.

  Amanda closed the door and stood there for a full minute, leaning against it. Then, even though she wasn’t hungry, she made herself a sandwich and carried it into the small sitting room. Floyd peered through the wires of his cage at her plate, and automatically Amanda broke off a bit of bread crust and a sliver of lettuce and put it in his food dish.

  She kicked off her shoes and sank down on the deep couch. Two bites later she set the plate on the flat-topped antique trunk which served as a coffee table, and put her feet up beside it.

  She had thought she was prepared.

  It would be easy, she had told herself. Chase Worthington would be just another guest. She would treat him as she had treated all the inn’s guests over her years as manager. She would address him with respect, do her best to fill any special needs, and leave him alone.

  She had never anticipated that he might not leave her alone.

  “Oh, be reasonable, Amanda!” she told herself crossly. “He wanted something, and he charmed you into providing it!” Only a fool would jump to the conclusion that he found her so personally attractive that he’d be sitting on her doorstep for the next four weeks. Even if he was vaguely interested, the man had a job to do. She’d gotten a glimpse of the shooting schedule. Even to an outsider it was obvious that starting tomorrow, Chase Worthington would be too busy working to have time for much else – even his son.

  She was surprised, in fact, that he’d brought Nicky with him. It didn’t seem a reasonable trade at all, to drag the child halfway across the country to a completely new place, away from his familiar routine, for the sake of a few minutes a day of his father’s time. The unhappiness in Nicky’s face today seemed to say that he agreed, that he would rather have stayed at home.

  But then Nicky Worthington’s life had never been exactly normal, Amanda reflected. His picture had been on the cover of Today’s Woman magazine before he was a month old. He’d gone on location with Desiree Hunt a few weeks after that. And he was barely two when her plane crashed...

  Amanda moved her plate, opened the trunk, and took out the antique quilt she kept there as a quick coverup for cool nights. Underneath was a pile of fat scrapbooks. She opened one and slowly began to turn the pages.

  She hadn’t paid any attention to Chase Worthington before Winter of the Heart. He’d been just another of the handsome men on the daytime soap operas, and they all looked alike to Amanda. But when the movie project was announced, and Springhill was named as the site...

  Even though she hadn’t been in Springhill during the filming, Amanda had felt a personal interest in the project because it was her home town. She had faithfully read the articles from the local newspaper, waited impatiently for Winter of the Heart to be shown, and cried along with the rest of the nation at the tragic ending. She knew what Stephanie had meant about feeling possessive about Chase; Amanda, too, had begun to feel a personal interest in the stars, as if they were somehow a part of Springhill’s extended family. She had read with interest about Nicky, and she had watched with fascination in the following years as the Worthingtons’ careers soared. She had even started to clip and save the articles about Chase’s television series, Desiree’s increasingly prominent parts in feature films...and the crash.

  The earliest articles she’d clipped were beginning to turn yellow already. Amanda hadn’t known back then how to properly protect newsprint; she’d glued the stories into a cheap scrapbook, and the acid-filled paper had done its damage before she learned there were better ways.

  She had even clipped a few of the scandalous stories Stephanie had mentioned. “Chase Dupes Desiree,” one of them shrieked. Another trumpeted, “He’s Not Desiree’s Baby!” She turned past those without reading them and stopped to look at the cover of Today’s Woman – Desiree Hunt, gorge
ous in a figure-hugging exercise suit, cradling three-week-old Nicky.

  When she saw that photograph, Amanda had to smile, for Nicky looked puzzled and a little cross-eyed, his thatch of dark hair standing on end and his aristocratic eyebrows arched as if he was wondering what the heck those bright lights were for, anyway.

  There was the story and photographs of the wreckage of Desiree Hunt’s plane, and the tabloid stories about the other women in Chase Worthington’s life since his wife’s death. Of course if those reports were all true, Amanda thought, the man wouldn’t have time left over to shave in the mornings, much less do any work!

  And then there were the recent articles – the renewal of Chase’s television show for another year, and all the hoopla in the Springhill newspaper about the sequel to Winter of the Heart. They were calling it Diamonds in the Dew, and by the time the shooting was over, the newspaper said, millions of dollars would have been dropped into Springhill’s economy. The production company would buy food and lodging and materials; it would rent houses and apartments for sets; it would hire extras by the dozens. The effects would ripple through the local economy for months to come.