Investment in Love (Contemporary Romance) (7 page)

Calvin cleared his throat quickly. “It’s old pictures of my family, actually,” he said. “My grandparents when my mom was a baby, and a photo of me and my mom.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet that your great-aunt had them,” Ellie said. “I bet your family will be glad to see them.”

His throat tightened again, and he cleared it more forcefully. “My Aunt Sheila will,” he said. “But my mom isn’t around. She died when I was a teenager.”

Ellie looked totally stricken, dark eyes going wide and shimmering with a hint of tears. “I’m so sorry,” she said, putting a slim hand on his shoulder. “I lost my dad recently. I know it’s tough.” With her this close, Calvin could smell the sweet scent of Ellie’s perfume or soap.

He shrugged, trying to shake off his sudden grief. “I’ve had a while to get used to it.”

With a slow nod, Ellie reached to peer at the picture in his hand. “So this is you?” she asked, pointing to the toddler. When he nodded, she laughed. “Cute kid.” Then, reaching to hand the photo back, she muttered, “It figures.” Calvin was pretty sure he hadn’t been supposed to hear that part, so he didn’t acknowledge it.

Ellie reached into the trunk again, ponytail swinging as she pulled out another tissue-wrapped packet. Calvin stood next to her, peering down in curiosity. This one contained another black-and-white photo and a faded, yellowed newspaper clipping. She handed them to Calvin. “Who’s this one?” she asked.

But Calvin didn’t know, and there was no label on the back. He sat the picture of the mystery man aside for a moment to look at the newspaper clipping instead. Craning his neck down at the chest was getting uncomfortable, so he sat down on the floor cross-legged next to Ellie.

“Carterville New Vacation Destination”

He skimmed the small article for a moment, trying to figure out why it had been saved. “Talbot family has taken mountain home,” “Cordelia, Edward, and sons Edward Jr. and Tommy, owners of a logging dynasty,” “others from growing city of Portland expected to follow,” “new age of tourism for the Carterville area.” By the time he reached the cutoff at the bottom, “Article Continues on Page 3,” he wasn’t any closer to understanding why it had been saved.

“Anything else?” asked Calvin.

“Just these,” said Ellie. She reached into the bottom of the trunk and pulled out two folded pieces of fabric. When shaken out, the top piece revealed itself to be a very small pink-striped blanket, while the bottom was a faded lavender dress, complete with puff shoulders and pointed collar. It looked old, but Calvin couldn’t have said when the style dated from. “Pretty,” Ellie murmured. “I wonder what they were for.”

He didn’t know. Clearly these things in the trunk had been important to his great-aunt, but Calvin had no idea
why.
Frustration washed over him. The woman who had left him all of her belongings and money was a huge mystery, and he wanted answers—but his only resource was his Aunt Sheila, and even she hadn’t known where the money had come from.

Ellie looked delicate and vulnerable as she sat there on the floor, biting at her lip, clearly deep in thought. Calvin was suddenly hyperaware of his proximity to her—their shoulders almost brushed with every breath, and his knee was bumped up against her smaller one. He could see her long, dark eyelashes and smell the floral scent of her perfume as she looked down at the bundle of fabric.

A desire to be even closer consumed him momentarily. Without conscious decision, he felt himself leaning in as though he was going to kiss Ellie. She looked at him silently, neither moving forward nor back, but her eyes shone up at him and he thought he saw her full pink lips part slightly.

But right then he remembered what he had decided.
She’s off-limits.
Calvin abruptly cleared his throat and sat up straight.

“Um…” His mind raced trying to come up with a conversation topic that would break the awkward silence. “So, ready for lunch?”

“Great!” said Ellie, turning red and jumping up. “I mean, yeah. Lunch sounds great.” He could tell she wanted to look anywhere but at him as she brushed invisible dust of her pants and headed toward the door. Calvin winced, realizing that it had looked like a complete rejection on his part. If only he could explain that he
did
want to kiss her.

After delicious sandwiches at Susie’s, Calvin was standing outside waiting for Ellie to finish in the bathroom.

“Fancy seeing you here!” called a chirpy female voice. He didn’t recognize it, so he spun slowly, not sure the words were meant for him. A little red sedan had pulled up behind him in the parking lot, and the dark-haired woman from a few days earlier—Mallory—was waving coyly at him from the driver’s seat.

She had her dark hair tucked up into a fancy bun, and heavy makeup on, but Calvin was amused to realize she still wasn’t as pretty as Ellie. He strolled over toward her window when it became obvious that she wanted to chat, thinking again of his imaginary “potential wife” list.

“Hi,” he said noncommittally.

Mallory smiled in an ingratiating manner. “
So
nice to see you,” she said. “What are you doing in town?”

“Ellie has been showing me around on our lunch breaks.”

The woman’s nose wrinkled for a minute, but she mastered her expression quickly. “Aw, that’s so sweet of her. Tell you what—why don’t I give you my phone number and I can show you a few of my favorite places too?”

If Calvin hadn’t been looking for a girl just like her, he would have laughed at the obviousness of her ploy. But as it was, he just smiled and said, “Sure.” She was playing right into his plans, and he had no compunctions about taking advantage of it. He was willing to bet that if he did marry her, she wouldn’t even complain about the pretense when he gave her a decent chunk of the money after the whole thing went through.

Mallory took his phone from him and tap-tapped her number into the contact screen. When he took it back, he was amused to see that she’d programmed her name as “Mal XOXO.”

“So, I have to ask,” she said with a high-pitched laugh, “is Ellie just working for you? Or…” She trailed off suggestively.

Calvin frowned a little bit. “She’s just—We’re friends.” With some surprise, he realized that it should have been true—but it wasn’t. He felt
far
more strongly about Ellie than he did about a friend. He wanted to spend every minute of every day with her, and hold her and kiss her and hear her secrets and dreams.
He had fallen hard for Ellie Parker.
The thought hit him like a punch in the stomach.

“Well,” said the woman before him, interrupting his racing thoughts, “how sweet! I’m sure she could use more friends.”

Before he could fully process the barb, Mallory was saying, “Bye for now and do call me!” and pulling back out of the parking lot.

What an unpleasant woman,
he thought. And then he thought,
but she is absolutely perfect for meeting the conditions of my great-aunt’s will.
He made sure the phone number had saved properly.

Just then, Ellie emerged, and he brushed away the thoughts and focused on the packing they had left to do.

They chatted easily on the drive back up the hill, and once inside they were able to quickly finish clearing the storage room. Everything was downstairs except that mysterious wooden chest, which Calvin had moved inside the bedroom where he’d been sleeping for later perusal.

Reluctantly, Calvin sent Ellie home. As much as he was enjoying her company, he knew that she needed to rest and do her own job. And furthermore, with every extra minute he spent in her company she was starting to win him over more, and he didn’t need that complication in his life.

Calvin was feeling more optimistic with the end in sight.
Now,
he thought as he surveyed the pile of boxes,
just to clean up the master bedroom and hope that Kathy will buy it all.

Instead of heading into his great-aunt’s bedroom, though, Calvin poured himself a glass of red wine and sat down with the decorative chest again. Picture of him and his mom, picture of his mom and her parents, picture of mystery man, random newspaper article, blanket, and dress. It just didn’t add up. Maybe he was wrong, but Calvin couldn’t shake the feeling that the items in this chest had had some special importance to Loretta Meyer.

When Ellie showed up at the house the next morning, she was still mulling over yesterday in her head. For a moment when they were cleaning out the storage room, she could have sworn that Calvin had been about to kiss her. Her heart had sped up until it was whirring like a small hummingbird, and she had finally had to admit to herself that she had fallen desperately for Calvin. Everything she’d wanted had been right there at hand—but then he hadn’t done it.

Ellie sighed and pushed open the door to the mansion. It was quite obvious that whatever feelings she’d been harboring were unrequited. Inside, she could see that the box pile had continued to grow while she was gone. She followed the sounds of shuffling upstairs and found Calvin’s tall frame wedged into a small closet, stuffing clothing into a box.

The dust in the air made her sneeze, and Calvin spun at the sound, poking his head out of the door. “Hi,” he said sheepishly.

“Sorry to startle you,” Ellie said, trying to hide her amused smile. “I knocked but you didn’t answer, so I figured you were up here somewhere.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I woke up and I felt bad about taking advantage of you to do my packing, so I decided to get right to work here in Great-Aunt Loretta’s room.”

She felt herself soften at this. “I don’t mind helping. That’s what friends are for.”

Quiet reigned for a moment and she spoke again, awkwardly toying with the strings of her sweatshirt hood. “We are friends, right?”

“Of course,” said Calvin, coming to stand next to her with a warm smile. Light from the window flashed in his blue eyes, and Ellie thought wistfully for the millionth time about how handsome he was. For a moment, he looked at her quietly, but then he cleared his throat and kept talking. “So since I’m done here, feel free to work on whatever you need to. I’m just going to finish in here and tidy things a little more. That way Kathy can look through them easily.”

“Oh, that sounds great,” said Ellie.

But the problem was that it didn’t. She didn’t want to go back to work in a different room. She wanted to spend another day working and laughing alongside Calvin. Biting her lip fretfully, she peered around the room. “You know, I could do the measurements in here,” she offered, trying to sound casual.
Maybe it was stupid to go pining after some stockbroker from a big city across the country, but he had said himself that he wanted to give the women of Carterville a chance. Maybe he would change his mind about her.

“Sure,” he said over his shoulder, heading back over to the closet. “You must be about done with the other rooms, right?”

“Great!” answered Ellie, and this time she really meant it. “I am pretty much done with the things I can do alone—after this I’ll hire a few laborers to come in and start taking out the old curtains, while we finalize the designs for each space. Then we bring in movers to take the old furniture out, tear up the carpets, replace them, and repaint the walls. And then you’ll have your new stylish house.”

Calvin just smiled and nodded before ducking back into the closet.

As he started filling boxes again, she stretched and cracked her knuckles, looking around at the room. She realized that she’d forgotten her measurement tools in the car, so after a quick jog downstairs, she was back with trusty tool belt and notepad. This time, Calvin wasn’t in the room to absorb her attention, so she had a chance to really take in the space. Loretta Meyer had been an enigma to the townspeople of Carterville the entire time Ellie was growing up, and it was strange to stand inside the woman’s inner sanctum.

Ellie walked over to the table beside the bed, trying to imagine a woman that neither she nor Calvin had ever really met living in this space. “Hey,” she called to Calvin, “did you ever figure anything out about the contents of that decorative chest?”

“Nope,” he said, voice muffled in the closet. “Other than the pictures of my family, I have no idea what those things are or why she had them. Guess even my reclusive great-aunt had a life and secrets of her own.”

For some reason, that thought made Ellie smile. It was comforting to think that even Loretta Meyer, who never left her house, could have had secrets and loves and dreams. “I guess even the simplest seeming life,” she mused out loud, “must have its own moments of joy and sorrow.”

Calvin poked his head out again, brow furrowed. “You sound really serious suddenly.”

Ellie blushed, caught in her moment of introspection. “I guess I relate a little bit to your great-aunt,” she said. “It’s comforting to think that even she had things in her life that we don’t know about.”

He quirked his head. “What do you possibly mean? You’re young and vibrant and outgoing—hardly an old recluse.”

“Well,” she said honestly, “I don’t see much in my future except my same old life in Carterville. I already know everyone here, so it’s not like I’m going to run into anyone and have a Cinderella story. I’ll probably grow old here with the same people, doing the same things at the family business.”
In fact,
she added to herself,
you’re the only guy around here I’ve even been interested in since high school… and now I’ve fallen hard for you and you don’t seem to be interested.

She thought she saw pity on his face, so she hurried to correct her statement. “It’s not that I mind, honestly. I
chose
to come home and take over the business when my dad died, and I love this town. It’s just that sometimes it seems a terribly simple life.” Ellie cut off abruptly, feeling that she was oversharing. She wasn’t sure why she had been so honest with Calvin Barnard, but for some reason she felt a need for him to really understand and know her.

“Was that always your plan?” he asked. “To take over your dad’s business, I mean.”

Ellie sighed, taken back to long-forgotten dreams. “Maybe not exactly. I used to have all these plans of turning the shop into a full fancy showroom, like IKEA, and working with my dad to offer design consultation and remodel—kind of like I’m doing here with you actually. I was going to move to Portland and set up my own interior design service and consult for my dad on the side. But then he got sick and, well, life intervened, I guess.”

“It has a habit of doing that,” Calvin said. The gentle sound of his deep voice rolled comfortably over her, and she was painfully glad to see that he didn’t think she was foolish for coming home to Carterville.

He tried to think of something else to say, but right then the phone in his pocket began vibrating. He didn’t recognize the number that flashed on the screen as he slid to accept the call.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Mr. Barnard. This is Walter Greenfeld.”

“Oh!” He glanced quickly at Ellie, who was looking at him curiously. “Uh, hold on just a minute.” Calvin slipped out the door and jogged downstairs. There was no way he wanted Ellie overhearing any of this.

In the kitchen, he started talking again quietly. “Hi, Mr. Greenfeld. Sorry about that. What can I do for you?”

“I just wanted to let you know that one of our associates will be available at the Carterville office this Thursday and Friday. We have someone available there two days of every month. If you need any legal advice regarding the will provisions or are ready to take steps forward, this is your chance.”

“Thank you for letting me know,” murmured Calvin. “I’m not really at a point for any of that, but I appreciate it.” He glanced toward the doorway, glad to see no sign of Ellie. A sick, guilty feeling was spreading through the pit of his stomach as the reminder of the encroaching deadline hit him like a cold splash of water.

“Of course,” said the lawyer gruffly. “Just a friendly reminder then that you are nearly halfway to the deadline.” His voice softened. “Not that you are required to act, of course.”

“Yeah,” Calvin said tightly. “Thank you.” He looked nervously around again, but the room was empty. “I have to go. I’ll see your associate if I have any questions.”

Without waiting for a response, he ended the call. He knew he was being unnecessarily rude, especially when the elderly lawyer had been nothing but kind, but the call was a rough awakening. Every day he spent puttering around the house and wasting time with Ellie was a day closer to losing $10 million.

He was just standing there pondering things when Ellie came running down the stairs.

“Calvin!” she called, sounding breathless and excited. “Calvin! Have you been in the attic?”

What?
She flew around the corner, coming to an abrupt stop before him. “The attic! Look!” Her petite arms were loaded with a dusty cardboard box, packed with leather-bound books, and she looked more beautiful than ever. Calvin’s heart twinged at the sight of her excited face.

“What is it?”

“They’re
diaries
!” she said. “They’re your great-aunt’s diaries! This could solve the mystery! And there are more boxes up there!”

He forgot his worries about the will and peered excitedly into the box. “Seriously?”

“Yes, look!” Ellie plopped right down on the kitchen floor and tugged a book out of the box. She opened to a ribbon-marked page and said, “Listen to this one! ‘It seems so strange to know that I will never see you again. We haven’t been in contact in years, but I supposed I still hoped that you would change your mind and come back into my life. To hear today that you are gone… it has shaken me. I hope you have found peace and happiness at last, even if we couldn’t have it together. You gave me more than I could ever thank you for, and I wish I would have swallowed my pride enough to tell you.’” She looked up at him with shining eyes and patted the floor next to her. “See! Isn’t it terribly romantic and sad?”

Calvin sat, looking sharply at the books.
Answers at last
. He only hoped they didn’t reveal more to Ellie than he had planned on. “You said they were in the attic?” he asked. “I didn’t know there was an attic.”

“It’s more of a crawlspace, really,” she answered absently, flipping through the diary. “I noticed the roof panel in the library when I moved a shelf.”

He frowned at her, suddenly concerned. “You shouldn’t be moving furniture around on your own. You could hurt yourself.” He didn’t ask himself why he cared so much, but Ellie didn’t even notice, just waving an absent hand at him as she continued reading.

“These are so fascinating,” she breathed. “Your great-aunt didn’t write a diary entry every day by any means, but there’s so much here. There were two more boxes up in the crawlspace. Listen! ‘Rainy, gloomy day today. Missing you and her more than ever. Too many secrets are bad for the soul, I suppose. Wish I had known this when I agreed to Maude’s last wishes.’ How mysterious!”

Calvin suddenly focused entirely on the book. “Maude’s last wishes? Maude was my grandmother. What were her last wishes?”

Ellie shrugged. “It doesn’t say here, but I bet it would in one of these! Oh, Calvin, can we read them all? Do you mind?” Her dark eyes shone earnestly at him.

He didn’t know. “It feels invasive, but…”
But he wanted answers.

“Oh,” said Ellie, “about that! These are in chronological order, I think, and the last one here was dated only a few years ago.” She grabbed the last book and flipped to the back. “See? ‘This volume is full, and I find the arthritis in my hands pains me more and more when I write. It’s foolish to hurt myself writing to you when you’re no longer here. I’d burn these notebooks, but I can’t bear to have so much of my life go unknown. For now I’ll hide this away with its companion volumes from the many years, and maybe take them down to read once in a while if I feel too alone.’ So doesn’t it sound as though she wouldn’t have minded?”

That was close enough to permission for him. He took the volume from Ellie’s slim hands and peered down in fascination at the spidery handwriting that covered the page. It was the same as the writing on the pictures in the old wooden chest, although perhaps shakier.

He was about to say yes, but a knock at the door echoed through the house. He and Ellie both jumped up, nearly colliding with one another, and she leaned down to grab the box, looking flustered.

“
Shoot
,” he said. “That’ll be Kathy. Look, Ellie, I’d love to read those… but later?”

The brunette nodded and scurried back toward the stairs with the box as he strode over to the door.

At some point while Calvin watched Kathy Timmons dig through all his boxes, Ellie made her exit. She was entirely cool and professional as she strode out the door, clutching her clipboard and casually waving.