“According to him, the right thing is to have me arrested.”
He laughed again and patted her arm. “Just trust me, Margie,” he told her, ushering her into the hallway. “Everything’s going to work out.”
“Simon-”
“Not another word, now,” he admonished, holding up one hand to still anything else she might have to say. “You just be yourself and let me worry about Hunter.”
Then he closed the study door, shutting Margie out and leaving her to wonder if he’d even heard a word she’d said. Probably not. She’d learned in the two years she’d worked for Simon that his head could be every bit as thick and stubborn as his grandson’s seemed to be.
For the next few days, Hunter suffered through oceans of gratitude. Stoically, silently, he accepted the thanks from people he’d known his whole life for things he hadn’t done.
Margie had been right, he knew. The people in Springville did need to know that their jobs, their lives, were safe. And around here, that meant having the Cabot family take an interest. Be involved.
And his “wife” was the Queen of Involved. She was on a half dozen committees, spent some of her day with Simon, taking care of business matters, and then what time she had left, she devoted to being the Lady of the Manor.
Hell. Hunter rubbed one hand across his face and told himself to knock it off. Yes, he resented all of the time and effort she was putting into Springville, but this was mainly because he still hadn’t figured out why she was doing it. And why was she giving him so much credit for everything she’d done? What the hell did she care if people in town hated or loved him? What did it matter to her if the Little League field had been replanted and new dugouts constructed for the kids who would play there this summer?
Why was she so damn determined to carve a place for herself in this little town? And why was she dragging him along with her?
It’s not about what you want, Hunter. It’s about what they need.
Those words of Margie’s kept repeating in his mind, and he didn’t much care for it. He’d never thought about the town and his attachment to it in those terms, and a part of him was ashamed to admit it, even to himself.
“But damn it, I don’t need a teacher. Don’t need this woman who’s not even my wife making me look good to a town I don’t even live in anymore.” He shook his head, glared out at the wide sweep of flowers spread out in front of him and muttered, “I didn’t ask her to do it, did I? I didn’t ask to be the damn town hero.”
“You talking to yourself again, Hunter?”
His head snapped up, and his gaze locked on the estate gardener watching Hunter from behind a low bank of hydrangeas. How much had the man heard? How much did he know? This pretending to be something he wasn’t was driving him nuts. Just as being married to a curvy, luscious redhead he couldn’t touch was beginning to push him to the edge of his control.
Sleeping beside her every night, waking up every morning to find himself holding her close only to jump out of bed and rebuild her damn wall before she could wake up and discover his weakness.
Weakness.
Since when did he have a damn weakness?
Taking a breath, he told himself to play the game he’d agreed to play. To get through the rest of the month and reclaim his life. When the month was over, he’d find a woman. Any woman, and bury his memories of Margie in some anonymous sex. Then he could get back to the base and do what he knew best.
“Just what planet are you on, Hunter?”
The gardener’s voice came again and Hunter muttered a curse he hoped the older man couldn’t hear. “Didn’t see you there, Calvin.”
Not surprising, since the man was practically hidden behind the massive pink and blue blooms dotting the rich, dark green leaves of the bushes.
“Don’t see much of anything since you’ve been home, if you ask me,” Calvin said, dipping his head to wield his pruning shears. The delicate snip of the twin blades beat a counterpoint to the lazy drone of bees dancing through the garden.
Hunter shoved both hands into the pockets of his jeans and walked toward the old man who’d been in charge of the Cabot gardens for nearly forty years. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Hmm?” Calvin lifted his head briefly, shot him a glance and shrugged. “Just seems to me a man who’s been apart from his wife for months on end would spend more time with her and less wandering around the estate talking to himself, that’s all.”
Hunter sighed. “That’s all?”
Calvin’s bristling gray hair wafted in the cool breeze, and his pale blue eyes narrowed on Hunter. “Well no, now that I think on it, maybe that’s not all.”
Hunter reached out, ran one finger along the pale pink petals of the closest blossom and slid a glance to the old man watching him. “Let’s have it, then.”
“You think I don’t notice things? I’m old, boy, not blind.”
“Notice what, Calvin?”
“How you watch that little girl of yours when she’s not looking. How when she is looking, your eyes go cold and you look away.”
Hunter scowled. Since when had Calvin become so damn perceptive? “You’re imagining things.”
“Now I’m senile, then? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“No,” Hunter said quickly, then shoved his hand back into his pocket. Tough to be a hard ass with a man who’d known you since you were a kid. “It’s just…complicated.”
Calvin snorted a laugh. “You always did make bigger mountains out of mountains, boy.”
“What?” Hunter laughed shortly as he tried to figure out what Calvin was talking about.
“No molehills for you. Nope. You look at something hard and make it impossible. Never could see what was right in front of you for staring out at the horizon. Always looking for something even though you wouldn’t know it if you stumbled on it.”
Hunter would have argued, but how could he? The old man was too damn insightful. Hunter had spent most of his life looking past the boundaries of this estate to the world beyond Springville. He’d wanted…more. He’d wanted to see other places, be someone else. Someone besides the latest member of the Cabot family dynasty.
And he’d done everything he’d wanted to, hadn’t he? He’d done important things with his life. He’d made a difference. Shifting his gaze across the garden and the wide stretch of neatly trimmed grass that ran down to the cliff’s edge and the sea beyond, he thought how small this place had once seemed to him. How confining. Strange that at the moment, it looked more welcoming than anything else. As if this place had simply lain here, waiting for him to come home.