Page 8

"What just happened?" Everett held up a hand to block the light from the setting sun as he propped the shed door open with his foot.

Lightfoot chuckled and extracted a wheeled handcart from the small outbuilding behind the house then clapped Everett on the shoulder. "You, my friend, just succumbed to a power that has been swaying men's minds since the beginning of time—the smile of a beautiful woman."

Everett frowned at his friend's assessment and shook his head in silent denial.

He'd been around beautiful women before, seen their smiles, been the beneficiary of their flattery and flirtation.

He'd enjoyed the attention, but he'd never been changed by it.

Unlike what had happened in his parlor ten minutes ago.

The moment he'd clasped Callista Rosenfeld's hand, something had shifted inside him, like a dead limb falling from a tree. He'd felt instantly lighter yet, at the same time, concerned that he'd lost a piece of himself. A piece that had defined his identity for years.

It hadn't been her smile. Well, all right, her smile had been part of it.

The woman was astoundingly beautiful, after all.

Made even more so by the fact that she made no attempt whatsoever to utilize it to her advantage.

No powders or cosmetics. No coy glances or coquettish wiles.

Her hair had been styled in a simple knot, nothing to draw a man's attention beyond its natural thickness and rich mahogany tones.

Her dress had been less than impressive.

Simple lines. Unadorned style. A tad shabby around the cuffs.

Utterly ordinary. Nothing enticing about it.

Except that the dark green color brought out the warm tones in her sand-colored skin.

And those freckles. A wide swath of them stretched from one cheek to the other, floating over the bridge of her nose.

They should have detracted from her beauty.

His mother had always gone into a dither if she spotted one marring her porcelain complexion.

Yet on Miss Rosenfeld, they enhanced her fresh, unspoiled appearance and called to the artist in him.

Plump pink lips, finely shaped brows, well-formed cheekbones, graceful neck. Even her ears had been delicate and feminine. Yet none of that beauty had moved him.

It had been her eyes that had reached into his soul and calmed his rage.

Not because of their deep brown color or their perfect symmetrical placement in her face.

No, they'd touched him because they'd seen him.

In all of his repugnant gruesomeness. And they hadn't looked away.

They'd filled with neither revulsion nor pity.

Instead, they'd glowed with challenge and determination, as if he were any other man who needed to be convinced of her abilities.

That's when her smile came. While she looked him full in the face and saw only an employer—not a monster.

For a heart-stopping moment, he'd felt almost— normal.

"You coming, Griff?"

Everett shook off his introspection and strode forward to meet an annoyingly chipper Lightfoot who'd wheeled the cart all the way to the path while his employer pondered freckles and feminine ferocity.

"For a minute there, I thought you were going to make me fetch the lady's trunks on my own."

"I should," Everett groused. "Would serve you right for letting that woman into my house against my orders."

"Nonsense." His valet's eyes twinkled, not an ounce of repentance to be found anywhere in the man's demeanor. "You're glad she's here. Admit it."

He'd admit no such thing. The woman was going to complicate everything. Throw off his routine. Make a mess of his library. Though, he was paying her for that, so he probably shouldn’t hold that against her.

Still, it had taken him over a year to be comfortable enough in his own skin to cease hiding his face from his staff.

Now all those insecurities were surging back to life.

He clenched his jaw against the waves of inferiority and worthlessness that threatened to drag him down to the murky depths of depression that had held him prisoner for months after his injury.

No! He wouldn't go back there. He'd worked too hard to climb out of that soul-shriveling pit.

He'd not hide from her. If she wanted to stay, she'd just have to endure his unsightly presence.

If she didn't have the stomach for it, she could leave. And good riddance.

The pounding in his head suddenly increased, reminding him that the migraine hadn't subsided, only lessened slightly.

The worst of the stabbing pains had receded when their visitor shocked him out of his anger.

Apparently, a release of physical tension lessened his symptoms. The doctor back in New York had indicated as much.

The physician had recommended Everett remove himself from stress-inducing environments and prescribed privacy and serenity for his condition.

Of course, the man had also tried to sell Everett's parents on the health benefits of an asylum he happened to own shares in, so Everett chalked him up as a profiteering quack.

But maybe he hadn't been a complete charlatan.

"You know," Lightfoot said as he set the cart down near the gate, "having Miss Rosenfeld around might be good for you. Bring some freshness and light to the place and banish those dark moods that beset you so often."

"My moods are not dark." Everett grabbed the gate latch and flung it aside with enough vigor that it banged against the iron bars.

"Of course not." His valet's eyes rolled, making his opinion on the matter abundantly clear. "You're a veritable ray of sunshine."

Everett scowled as he yanked the gate open. "I'm up every day, aren't I? Bathed and groomed. Occupying my time with productive activity."

Lightfoot's gaze softened. He'd seen Everett at his worst. When despondency had its hold on him, and he'd barely been able to drag himself from bed.

He'd go days without bathing, sometimes without eating as well.

Lightfoot had been the one to drag his sorry carcass out of bed, to flood his room with sunlight, to scrub the stink from his sweat-stained sheets.

He'd been the one to convince Everett to pick up a paintbrush again.

To purchase a dog. To get out of the house and explore the world around him.

He'd spent weeks at his employer's bedside, reading aloud even when Everett had demanded to be left alone.

Adventure novels mostly. Gulliver's Travels, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Around the World in Eighty Days .

Everett had seen through the ploy, of course.

Knew Lightfoot hoped to inspire in him a thirst for life through the examples of intrepid fictional heroes.

Everett had resisted, wanting nothing more than to wallow in victimized misery, but Lightfoot wore him down eventually.

Though, that probably had more to do with the man's prayers than his novel reading.

That and the Bible he'd left next to Everett's bed every night, the ribbon marker moved to a new underlined verse for him to find each morning.

"You've come a long way, Griff, and I praise God for it every day, but shadows still cling to you."

"I don't need a lecture, Ray. I've come to terms with who I am now. I've adjusted."

Lightfoot raised a brow. "Adjusted, huh? By naming your home after a fearsome mythological beast? You installed gargoyles on the roof corners, for pity's sake, and instead of getting a normal dog, you chose a grizzly bear."

Everett smirked. Lightfoot had never developed a fondness for Spartacus. Probably because the Mastiff had flattened him the first time they'd met, putting his paws on the valet's shoulders and toppling him into a mud puddle. "Just embracing my new identity."

Lightfoot shook his head, unimpressed by Everett's quip. "It's not a man's appearance that forms his identity, it's his character. You are more than your face, Griff. You always have been."

The stabbing returned to his head. "Tell that to my mother."

Turning his back on his valet, he strode to where the trunks were stacked and took up the first handle, waiting impatiently for Lightfoot to grasp the opposite end and refusing to meet his friend's gaze.

Everett's mother hadn't looked him in the face since the doctor removed the bandages five years ago.

He could still hear her sobs. "My boy! My beautiful boy!

" She'd mourned him as if he'd died. She'd avoided him as he'd convalesced, hiring nurses so she wouldn't have to see his mangled face.

Father made excuses for her, claiming she blamed herself for what happened.

That was why she couldn't bear to look at him.

The guilt cut too deeply. Perhaps there was some truth to that, but shouldn't a mother care more about alleviating the pain of her child than seeking her own comfort?

She hadn't even seen him off at the train station when he'd left to come to Texas.

The most she'd sacrificed was letting her cook leave New York to become his housekeeper.

She'd written the first year. Twice. On his birthday and at Christmas.

The letters had been full of chatter about what was going on in society.

About an art exhibit she had visited. A few lines about his father's business.

No apologies for her neglect. No mention of missing her youngest son. No promise of a visit.

Everett hadn't bothered to reply. The letters ceased after that.

It seemed to suit them both to learn second-hand information through his brother.

Alex at least asked how Everett was faring and looked for ways to help.

He'd found a gallery in Houston willing to sell some of Everett's work and recommended a few investments that had allowed Everett to support himself instead of continuing to live off of Father's charity.

After hefting both trunks onto the handcart with Lightfoot's assistance, Everett took the lead and dragged from the front, leaving Lightfoot to push from the back.

It felt good to strain his muscles, to focus on transporting physical luggage instead of contemplating baggage of an emotional sort.

Miss Rosenfeld's trunks might be heavy, but they felt like feathers compared to the weight that pressed upon his spirit with crushing force whenever he thought of his family and the future that should have been his.

More than his face? Everett scoffed at Lightfoot's assessment.

Maybe that held true for most men, fellows who found their worth in running a successful business or taming the land by the sweat of their brow.

Everett didn't fit that mold. His value had always stemmed from his pleasing appearance and charming manner.

When Lillian March destroyed the first, the second soon deteriorated to the same extreme.

He was a beast now—inside and out—and no bookish beauty, regardless of her tenacity, was going to change that.