Better Homes and Hauntings Page 5

  She laughed.

  “So, I’ve shared one of my psychologically formative secrets with you, not to mention made myself sound like a bit of a tool with the Forbes thing. The least you can do is tell me how young Nina Linden became so interested in Greek mythology that she named her business after the goddess of the harvest.”

  She offered him a shy smile. “When I was seven, I got the chicken pox. It was just awful, one of the worst cases my pediatrician had ever seen. I had them in my ears, on the soles of my feet, just everywhere. I was miserable and itchy, and I was making my parents equally miserable. And one day, my dad brought home a big stack of videos from the Rental Hut. Annie, The Apple Dumpling Gang, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, anything to keep me quiet and still for a few minutes at a time. But the one I watched over and over, to the point where my mom was afraid that I was going to wear the tape out, was this weird animated collection of Greek myths. Hercules and the twelve labors. Icarus and his melting wax wings. King Midas and the golden touch. And my personal favorite, Hades tricking Persephone into staying in the depths of the Underworld three months a year, making her mother, Demeter, so miserable that she kills off all the plants and creates winter.”

  “Sort of dark for a seven-year-old.”

  “It was,” Nina agreed. “But I was hooked, couldn’t stop watching it, which was probably not healthy for me. Dad ended up having to buy the video from the store or pay more in late fees than the tape was worth. I started reading everything I could find in the library on Greek myths. I learned all about the gods and goddesses and their symbols and alliances and powers. And I loved the idea that Demeter had a fairly wimpy power—plants not being as lethal as lightning or the sun or the ocean—but she managed to bring the whole world to a stop because she was ticked off about her daughter being taken away. I started growing beans and avocados in cups on my windowsill, which led to my next crazy phase, gardening.”

  “And you turned out to be a nice, normal girl, so clearly the overindulgence in animated mythology didn’t warp you too much,” he said, grinning at her, making her insides turn all warm and fluttery. That wasn’t good.

  “What makes you think I’m nice and normal?” she asked, her tone far more challenging than what was advisable.

  “Extensive background checks.” Deacon’s cheeks flushed, although Nina couldn’t tell whether it was embarrassment or sunburn. “You know, I tried to send you an EyeContact request to help us keep in touch during the project, but I couldn’t find you. Even with my supersecret admin privileges.”

  Nina was willing to let the background-check comment slide for now. She had expected as much, dealing with someone as rich and security-conscious as Deacon. What surprised her was that she’d passed the check. She pasted on a cheeky smile, even if she wasn’t feeling quite sassy yet. “Well, this is probably going to hurt my chances of continued employment, but I don’t have a profile on EyeDee.”

  Deacon’s jaw dropped, and it was his turn to laugh.

  He had a very nice laugh, Nina noted. It made his whole face relax into something just a little younger, a little less burdened. And she resolved that she would try to make that happen at least once a day, if for no other reason than that it might keep her in a job that much longer. Gardener-slash-court-jester was a perfectly respectable position, right?

  “I don’t know whether to feel insulted on a professional level or worried about hiring a hermit.”

  Nina scoffed. “I’m not a hermit! I just don’t have that many people I want to keep up with from high school. I have friends, and when I want to talk to them, I have this new invention, it’s called a phone. It’s like magic. I hit these little buttons, and suddenly, my friend’s voice comes out.” She pulled her thick, early-model cell phone from her pocket.

  Deacon’s mouth remained open as he marveled at the relic in her hand. “Is that a Zack Morris phone? Seriously, Ms. Linden? Are you going to call for a carryout order from the Maxx?”

  “It’s just a phone.” She sighed. “It works. That’s all I ask of it.”

  He shook it like a faulty flashlight. “Can you even get text messages on this thing?”

  She snatched the phone back and crossed her arms, peering up at him. She’d changed her mind. She wouldn’t make him smile anymore, particularly if she was to be the source of his amusement. Because right now, that smile was doing funny things to her belly and making her knees all jellied. And surely, throwing herself at her boss while shouting Flash Gordon quotes was not the mark of a composed professional.

  She needed to think of something else to talk about, something business-related, something that would catch his somewhat scattered attention and redirect it from her cave-phone.

  “Why did you hire me?” she blurted out. “There were much larger firms up for the job. Firms that have more of a track record with large estates. Why me?”

  Really, brain? She huffed internally. That’s what you came up with? Making him question why he hired you in the first place?

  And there was the boyish grin again. “Plant samples. You were the only landscaper I met who thought to bring plant samples, so I could grasp what the gardens would smell like. I liked that. It showed an attention to detail I thought was lacking in the other presentations.”

  “Oh.” She chuckled, surprised and pleased that he’d noticed. He rubbed the back of his neck, staring down at his feet. “And is there a reason you haven’t hired a security staff? If nothing else, I’d assume that you’d be a prime kidnapping target. What with the Forbes top ten entrepreneurs list and everything. I mean, if I were a criminal, I would kidnap you.”

  Oh, dear God, brain, we are not friends anymore. Clearly, my id is going to take the wheel from here.

  She cleared her throat. “Anyway, you’ve isolated yourself out here in the middle of nowhere without protection. Why not keep the security team on site?”

  “It seemed unfriendly,” he said. Nina snorted, which made him smile. “Not that many people know I’m out here. Besides, before we arrived, I had a security system installed. It’s armed every time the day crews leave the island. Any motion within twenty yards of the shoreline sets off the sensors, and I get an alert on my phone, which includes a live feed from a nearby video camera. There’s a panic room installed just behind my office. There are cameras focused on every square inch of the property. And this little button on my watch? There’s a private SWAT team standing by at an undisclosed location on the mainland who can make it here in six minutes by helicopter.”

  “I don’t know whether to be impressed or terrified.”

  “Maybe a mix of both?” he suggested. “You could be imperrified.”

  Nina laughed. “That’s awful. I hereby forbid you to create portmanteaus. It’s for the greater good.”

  “Well, you know what the word ‘portmanteau’ means, which is one up on, oh, ninety percent of the population.”

  “So if we have the SWAT team on the six-minute call window, why can’t Anthony stay on the island? Surely, scary military personnel could handle a medical evacuation.”

  Deacon nodded. “They could. And I added a medical rescue service when I found out about Anthony’s heart condition. He’s the best, and he came highly recommended by Jake, so I wanted him. But his wife, Marie, would worry herself sick if she couldn’t see him every day, and that seemed cruel.”

  “That was very kind of you.”

  “Not really,” Deacon protested. “Marie brought three dozen of her indescribably awesome Italian lemon-drop cookies by my office and promised me another two dozen every week for the next year if I let her Tony stay at home while he worked on my ‘little house project.’ ”

  “Really?” Nina cackled. “She bought you with cookies?”

  “Every man has his weakness,” he said. “Mine happens to be delicious homemade baked goods.”

  “Well, if I ever foul up the flower beds, I’ll just whip up a batch of snickerdoodles.”

  An expression of pure want flashed acros
s his eyes, and Nina felt vaguely insulted that said expression centered on cookies. He pressed his hand over his heart. “Don’t toy with me, Ms. Linden.”

  “I never joke about my snickerdoodles,” she said, her voice dropping to a seductive, teasing octave that even she didn’t recognize.

  Tugging at his collar, Deacon cleared his throat. “Jake said you’ve been uneasy about the house?”

  Nina’s flirty tone disappeared. She cleared her throat. “I thought I saw something yesterday, but it was probably just a trick of light or a hallucination brought on by seasickness meds. Really.”

  “I know the house has a reputation,” he said, carefully placing his hand on her shoulder. And then, remembering his own scrupulously written corporate policies on sexual harassment in the workplace—even if that workplace was his own backyard—he quickly pulled his hand away and held it behind his back. “And that can put people on edge, make them misinterpret things or see things that aren’t there. But really, it’s just an old, beat-up house on an old, beat-up island. There’s nothing supernatural going on here.”

  There was a desperate tone in his assurance, Nina thought, as if he was trying to convince himself as much as her. She asked, “If it’s just an old, beat-up house on an old, beat-up island, why do you want to live here?”

  “A convoluted idea of family loyalty?” he said, perching on the edge of the fountain and squinting up at her.

  She fished around in her tool kit until she found a faded green baseball cap embroidered with the lotus-like Demeter Designs logo. She pressed it into his hands and sent a significant look at his high, surprisingly elegant forehead.

  AFTER A MOMENT of debating whether Jake would make fun of him for wearing it, Deacon slapped the cap onto his head. There were a lot of reasons for wanting to reclaim Whitney Island, but he doubted that sweet-faced, skittish Nina had the patience to hear that particular dissertation.

  He’d anticipated complications with this project. One didn’t simply walk into Mordor, and one didn’t restore a one-hundred-plus-year-old house without some problems. He knew it was optimistic to expect to carry a full workload while he was staying on the island, which was why he had promoted Vi from his assistant to vice president of “distance operations,” covering the holes in Deacon’s schedule and chain of command while he was off getting closure. Vi now had her own assistant and a corner office with a mini-fridge stocked with her favorite obscure Jones sodas. He shuddered. Gravy should not be a soda flavor.

  Deacon had grown up with a name that had traditionally meant wealth and privilege to many in Newport. Unfortunately, tradition and present-day reality weren’t necessarily the same thing. The reality was like being the crown prince of a defunct country. Deacon was raised on tales of what could have been, what should have been. His dad had made a decent living practicing law, but his income wasn’t what his Main Line Philadelphia–born Mayflower mother was used to, and she couldn’t seem to adjust her spending habits. The fights about money were constant, loud, and sometimes public. His parents were more than well-educated. They could order dinner in several languages. They could traverse the social landscape of their moneyed neighbors, but they just couldn’t seem to get a grasp on ordinary adult obligations—such as the mortgage, car payments, or insurance. Somehow, his mother’s outstanding accounts at Saks and Elizabeth Arden took precedence. And his father couldn’t allow the family membership at the Newport Country Club to lapse. That would be shameful.

  His father couldn’t let go of the “Whitney tradition,” even when it would have been more practical for the family to live in a smaller house or for Deacon to go to public school instead of the fancy private school the family’s “peers” attended. So Deacon was treated to condescending stares and outright hostility from his classmates, as if they thought “poor” was contagious.

  When he earned a computer-science scholarship to Harvard, the only school his father would consider letting him attend, kids from the same old-money families looked down their noses at him, the kid whose parents’ car was repossessed from the school parking lot at parent-teacher night, the kid who bought school uniforms secondhand. Other scholarship kids resented him for stealing a spot from an underprivileged student. Mothers at the country club prayed he wouldn’t notice their daughters.

  The only thing the family had to its name was this particular pile of rocks under his feet, which was held in a trust that wouldn’t let it be sold. So when they had money troubles that couldn’t be solved by opening a credit card in Deacon’s name, his parents honored the family tradition of rummaging through the house for any overlooked knickknacks that could be hocked or sold outright.

  Nina’s background check had been an interesting, but troubling, read. He knew about the bankruptcy, the fraud charges, the trouble she’d had obtaining her own business loans and license. He felt a certain kinship with her. That combined with the fact that she was so lushly beautiful had made him fidgety and somewhat awkward during their initial interview at his office. He’d tried to converse with her professionally, as if she was any other contractor involved in the Crane’s Nest project, but he’d ended up dropping the cup of piping-hot espresso his assistant had just delivered directly onto his left hand. Nina had rounded the desk in no time, quietly and competently using her purse-sized first-aid kit to apply ointment and a bandage to his burned skin. The fact that she was so ill at ease but still managed to function and care for another person told him all he needed to know about Nina Linden.

  But still, possible shared trauma and his family’s sordid financial history seemed like a lot of information to pile into a near-stranger’s lap. So instead, he finally answered, “For years, this house was a symbol of my family’s bad luck, of failure, shame, tragedy. I want to be able to show people that things have changed, to restore the family name to where it was, maybe even a little bit better.”

  “I suppose adding ‘because now you have more money than they do’ is a vulgar way to put it?”

  Deacon chuckled. “Probably, but no less vulgar than me wanting to prove that I’ve made something of myself. Genes, even if they link you to some of the unluckiest bastards on the planet, do not determine destiny. So we’re going to fix this place up and prove it to the world.”

  Nina’s expression slid from concerned to slightly disappointed. His answer made sense. It was a crappy, shallow answer, but it made sense.

  Deacon noticed Nina’s frown. “Hoping for something a little more altruistic?”

  Before she could respond to his oh-so-cheerful observations, Nina turned toward the sound of loud arguing as Cindy and Jake, yelling at the top of their lungs, were practically jogging across the lawn toward the fountain, arms waving. Anthony followed at a leisurely pace, as if his colleagues weren’t going insane before his very eyes. Deacon sighed and walked toward them.

  “What now?” he huffed.

  Anthony continued past them, taking a seat next to Nina on the fountain. “Did Jake go too far with his version of quote-unquote flirting?” she asked quietly.

  Anthony shook his balding gray head, folding his hands over his beer belly. “I’m not sure. I was in the grand ballroom with my crew and ran to do damage control when I heard the yelling. Blood is hell to get out of parquet flooring.”

  “Surely it won’t go that far,” Nina murmured.

  “You missed the part where she threatened him with grout cleaner.”

  “Well, there’s a complex history there,” she started, but Anthony cut her off.

  “They’ll either stab each other or sleep together before the first month is out. Given the grout cleaner, I’d be willing to put a twenty on stabbing.”

  “That would be completely wrong and unethical and . . .” Nina said just as Cindy called Jake an “overgelled, classless troll” in a tone so sweet it sounded like a compliment. Nina lowered her voice to say, “I’ll put thirty on sleeping together.”

  Anthony gave an exaggerated mock gasp. “And you seem like such a nice girl!”


  “Whit, would you tell this woman that she has no right to move entire rooms around on my blueprints?” Jake demanded.

  Cindy was all acidic smiles and saccharine sweetness. “Mr. Whitney, would you please explain to your architect that these storage areas are part of an organization plan that you approved?” she practically cooed. “You asked Anthony to knock out one of the walls between guest rooms to create storage and display space for your collectibles.”

  “Collectibles?” Nina whispered.

  “I’ve seen the sketches,” Anthony whispered back. “The guy’s a big fan of those weird sci-fi/fantasy movies. Flash Gordon. Krull. Tron. Ladyhawke. Did you know they made Krull action figures? Because I sure didn’t. I’ve never even heard of that movie.”

  Nina shook her head. “I did not know that. But now that I know that there’s a tiny posable Liam Neeson out there, I sort of want one.” The look Anthony gave her was equal parts confusion and speculation. She just shrugged. “Don’t judge me.”

  Deacon asked. “Jake, didn’t we have this conversation about the storage rooms last week?”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t think you were serious!” Jake exclaimed.

  “Why not?” Deacon asked.

  “Because when you told me about those plans, I said, ‘That’s fine, as long as you’re OK with two of the guest rooms collapsing on themselves, because you’re removing a load-bearing wall.’ Remember?”

  Deacon frowned. “No, I’m pretty sure I tuned you out after you said, ‘That’s fine.’ ”

  “Gah!” Jake threw his arms skyward. At Nina’s snicker, he turned on her. “Quiet, you.”

  Nina mimed zipping her lips and tossing the key to Anthony, who “caught” it.

  “I was up to my ears in code!” Deacon exclaimed. “You know we have that new EyeChat feature launching—”

  “I knew you weren’t listening!” Jake cried, scraping his fingers through his thick sandy hair, making it stand up.

  “Can’t you make up some sort of hand signal or something so I know when a conversation is important and I need to pay attention?”