Heaven Sent (3 page)

Callie lowered Becky to the ornate
Chinese rug decorating the drawing room floor and dropped a kiss on
her pretty blond curls. “I’ll see you later, Becky.”

“
Promise?” Becky looked
worried.

Callie smiled at her.
“Promise.”

“
Well . . . All right.”
Becky left the room much more slowly than she’d entered
it.

As soon as the door closed, Callie
returned her attention to Aubrey. She braced herself, expecting to
be tossed out of his house and told never to return. It would kill
her to know that Becky would be living in this sterile household
without a mother or a father, or anyone else to love
her.

“
I don’t know how you
managed to finagle your way into my daughter’s good graces, Miss
Prophet, but I suppose I’m going to have to give you a
chance.”

Callie’s heart nearly jumped out of
her chest. Her eyes opened wide.

Aubrey sneered. “Yes, you might well
stare. However, while I’m willing to hire you on a contingent
basis, I want you to understand absolutely that if you do
anything—anything at all—to upset my daughter, my servants in
general, or me in particular, you’ll be thrown out on your
ear.”

“
Oh!” She gulped. “Yes. I
understand.”

“
Good.”

Swallowing the hot words his attitude
provoked in her, Callie said, “Thank you, Mr. Lockhart.”

“
When can you
start?”

She lifted her arms in a gesture of
befuddlement. “Er, well, it doesn’t matter. Any time.”

“
Good. Bring your things
tomorrow. I’ll have Mrs. Granger prepare a room for
you.”

“
Thank you.” Callie bobbed a
curtsy, but he didn’t see it because the door had opened again and
he’d turned, scowling.

Callie imagined he expected to find
Becky, come to see if they were through talking yet. Time went very
slowly for six-year-olds.

It wasn’t Becky. It was Mrs. Granger,
with a tray holding tea things. Aubrey sent her away. The last
Callie saw of her, Mrs. Granger was glancing back over her shoulder
at the two of them, curiosity writ large on her elderly
features.

As for Callie herself, she walked home
on a cloud.

Chapter Two

Aubrey left his drawing room feeling
rather as if he’d been run over by the Santa Angelica mail wagon.
He didn’t like it.

He did, however, manage to smile at
Becky and pick her up when she ran down the hall to him, her face
as eager as if she were anticipating Christmas.

“
Will Miss Prophet come to
live with us, Papa?”

The usual reserve Aubrey had come to
expect from his daughter seemed to have vanished under the
influence of Miss Prophet’s anticipated arrival into the Lockhart
home. Aubrey’s heart hitched. He’d been so unfair to Becky these
last couple of years. “Yes, Becky. Miss Prophet will move her
things in tomorrow. Perhaps you can help Mrs. Granger pick out a
bedroom for her to use.”

He was sorry he’d made the suggestion
as soon as Becky wriggled to get down. It had been a while since he
had held her, and he had forgotten how good it felt. It especially
irked him that all this enthusiasm was for Callida Prophet. He knew
he shouldn’t mind. After all, what had he done lately to win his
child’s affection? Not dashed much.

“
Oh,
thank
you, Papa! I know
ezackly
what room I want
her to have!”

At least she deposited a quick kiss on
his cheek before she darted off to find the housekeeper. Aubrey
sighed as he stared after her.

Before Anne got sick, he had been on
top of the world. He’d exuded confidence and competence, and for
good reason. He’d started his own Chinese imports business when he
was barely out of college, and had made a million dollars by the
time he was twenty-five, Miss Prophet’s age. He’d attained his
life’s ultimate goal when he’d married the woman he loved: the
sweet and beautiful Miss Anne Harriott. It was Anne for whom he’d
worked so hard. He’d wanted to be worthy of her, When Anne had
given birth to Becky, he’d thought he’d never want for anything
again.

Not any longer. Now he faced each day
with dread and loathing. He was still rich—once the wheels of
progress had started, it took a lot to slow them down—but
everything else in his life had gone straight to hell. He entered
his library, which doubled as his office, shut the door, flopped
down in the chair he’d vacated when Callie had arrived to be
interviewed, and stared at nothing. “Why, Anne? Why did you have to
leave us?”

No answer to the question had occurred
to him by the time Figgins rang the antique Chinese gong for
dinner.

*****

Callie bumped along on the passenger
seat of her brother George’s utility wagon, the one he used when he
was transferring supplies for his successful Santa Angelica
hardware store. She held the handle of the wicker picnic basket
sitting on her lap. Irate and terrible yowling sounds came from
inside the basket. Callie was especially grateful that George had
thought to tie the lid of the basket down with some rope before
they left the house.

“
I still say you’re out of
your mind,” George said, for perhaps the fiftieth time.

“
Fiddle. She’s a sweet
little girl.”

“
Sweet little girl be
hanged. She’s not your responsibility.” George, who had two
children of his own as a result of his marriage to his childhood
sweetheart Marie, sounded more severe than he really
was.

“
Perhaps not, but I remember
what it was like to lose our mother when I was her age.” Callie
felt stupid when she had to brush a tear from her cheek.

George reached over and patted her
knee. “I know. It was hard on all of us. But we all pulled through
it eventually.” If he hadn’t been driving, Callie would have hugged
him.

“
Exactly. But poor little
Becky doesn’t have any wonderful brothers or sisters to help her.
And her father seems to have taken up residence on some other
planet. She deserves to know that someone cares about her and how
she feels.”

George heaved a sigh. “I’m sure her
father cares.”

“
He doesn’t act like it.”
Callie sniffed.

“
How do you
know?”

“
Because I—” Recalling that
she’d not filled George in on Becky’s sweet and emotionally
devastating letters, Callie stopped herself just in time. “Urn,
because I got to know her on my postal route.”

George nodded but didn’t jump in to
agree with her, as he usually did. Callie eyed him sideways,
wondering what had given her brother pause. After a moment, he
said, “Well, he was hurt, too, you know. That doesn’t mean his
behavior is acceptable, but it does make it more
understandable.”

She heaved an aggrieved sigh. She
didn’t want to understand Aubrey Lockhart; he had treated her
horribly, and Callie wasn’t ready to forgive him for that yet. “Of
course he was hurt, but he’s a man.”

George offered her a grin. “Are you
saying men don’t feel?”

“
Of course I don’t mean that
men don’t feel!”

“
It’s a good thing, because
if anything happened to Marie, I don’t know what I’d
do.”

“
Oh, George, I’m sorry.”
Callie, who knew George loved his family with all the vigor in his
strong body, felt a pang of guilt until she noticed her brother’s
satisfied expression.

“
Why, you beast!”

George grinned, obviously enjoying his
sister’s consternation. “Got you that time, didn’t I,
Callie-coe?”

She huffed. Then she grinned, too.
Then she giggled. She couldn’t stay mad at her brother, no matter
how hard she tried. He was too jolly and joyful for anyone to be
angry at for long. George and her sisters, Florence and Alta, were
the three finest human beings in the world and, in Callie’s
opinion, their respective spouses ranked as the three second
finest.

George eyed Callie’s basket. “I don’t
know what Mr. Lockhart’s going to think about you bringing Monster
with you, though.”

“
That’s
Mister
Monster to you,
George.”

“
Fudge. He’s a monster, and
you know it.”

“
Just because he likes to
nibble your boot laces doesn’t make him a real monster. I only
named him Monster because he’s so big.”

“
He’s big and spiteful and
tried to kill Miss Naomi, you mean.”

“
I do not. Miss Naomi got to
like him. After a little while.”

“
Pooh. She gave up, is what
you mean.”

Callie imagined he was right. Miss
Naomi, the Prophet family cat for years, took things as they came.
“Fiddlesticks. They used to curl up and purr together until she
died. And then Monster was terribly sad.”

“
I’ll just bet.”

But she knew he was joshing in order
to take her mind away from how much she despised Aubrey Lockhart.
And he was right to do so. She couldn’t very well enter into
employment and overtly demonstrate her contempt for her employer;
not if she wanted to keep her job for long. She hadn’t even started
it yet and already the miserable cad had threatened her
tenure.

Realizing she’d just undone her
brother’s good intentions, she detached her mind from Aubrey
Lockhart, to which it seemed to want to cling like a leech, and
returned it to the cat in the basket. “Besides, Becky wants a kitty
or a puppy. She said so.” She hadn’t revealed to her family that
she’d been writing Becky, pretending to be the little girl’s mother
in heaven.

“
That cat,” said George in a
crisp tone, “is
not
a kitty. It’s a damned big cat. And a mean one.”

“
Monster isn’t mean,” Callie
crooned, leaning over the basket—but happy she wasn’t within
scratching distance. “He’s a love.”

“
Right.”

They’d come to the entrance to the
Lockhart mansion. The main iron gate in front of the long drive
stood open and was, according to the Santa Angelica gossip mill,
never locked. Callie guessed that, at one point, this had been
intended as an indication of the family’s sociability. However, now
it seemed to be more of an old habit or a relict of bygone, happier
days. Because Aubrey had chosen to isolate himself from the rest of
the world, no one visited the Lockharts any longer. Which was one
more pity to add to the growing heap.

George maneuvered the horse around the
corner and onto the well-tended driveway. Azaleas bloomed alongside
the drive, and Callie could see a rose garden in the
distance.

“
Aubrey Lockhart aside, I’m
glad I thought of applying for this job,” Callie said, not
bothering to suppress the excitement in her voice. “I’m sure I can
help Becky.”

“
You really like that kid,
don’t you?”

When she turned her head, she saw
George watching her curiously. “Yes. Yes, I do. I love her. She’s a
sweet child, and she’s suffered a tremendous loss.”

“
She reminds you of you, in
fact.”

“
Well . . . yes.” Callie
sighed. “I can’t help it, George. I just want to help
her.”

“
You’re an amazing young
woman, you know that, Callie?” George smiled affectionately at his
youngest sister. “A bit crazy, but amazing nonetheless.”

Callie giggled, glad her brother was
there to lighten her mood and soothe her nerves. She was gazing at
the roses and thinking how lovely the blooms were when George said,
“But all joking aside, there’s something else I’m worried about,
Callie. You quit your job. What happens if this one doesn’t work
out?”

Callie had wondered the same thing.
She’d talked about it to Mr. Wilson, in fact. He’d told her she
could have a job at the post office any time she wanted one,
although she might have to wait for a position to open up. It
wasn’t a guarantee, but at least it was some kind of insurance.
“I’ve already talked to Mr. Wilson. He said he’d be happy to rehire
me.”

“
Well, that’s
something.”

Exactly what she’d thought.

George stopped the wagon at the
kitchen door of the mansion at Callie’s request and hopped out. Mr.
Lockhart already didn’t like her. If she dared to walk through the
front door as if she were an honored guest, she was pretty sure he
wouldn’t appreciate it.

George walked over to Callie’s side of
the wagon and held out his hand. Taking his hand and shinnying down
over the big dusty wagon wheel, Callie muttered, “Thanks, George. I
think I’d better see if anyone’s home before we unload.”

She was happy that Mrs. Granger not
only seemed to have been expecting her, but even greeted her with a
wide smile.

“
Oh, Callie, I’m so glad
that you’re here and you’re going to be Becky’s nanny. I told Mr.
Lockhart you’ll be good for that poor mite.”

“
You did?” She hadn’t
anticipated Mrs. Granger’s commendation, but she appreciated it.
“Thank you.”