“Catherine, there is no excuse for rudeness.”

“That's all right.” Trent merely settled back. “I'm becoming used to it. Are all your nieces so... aggressive, Mrs. McPike?”

“Coco, please,” she murmured. “They're all lovely women.” As she lifted the teapot, she sent C.C. a warning glance. “Don't you have work, dear?”

“It can wait.”

“But you only brought out service for two.”

“I don't want anything.” She plopped down on the arm of the sofa and folded her arms over her chest.

“Well then. Cream or lemon, Trenton?” “Lemon, please.”

Swinging one long, booted leg, C.C. watched them sip tea and exchange small talk. Useless talk, she thought nastily. He was the kind of man who had been trained from diapers on the proper way to sit in a parlor and discuss nothing.

Squash, polo, perhaps a round of golf. He probably had hands like a baby's. Beneath that tailored suit, his body would be soft and slow. Men like him didn't work, didn't sweat, didn't feel. He sat behind his desk all day, buying and selling, never once thinking of the lives he affected. Of the dreams and hopes he created or destroyed.

He wasn't going to mess with hers. He wasn't going to cover the muchloved and much-cracked plaster walls with drywall and a coat of slick

paint. He wasn't going to turn the drafty old ballroom into a nightclub. He wasn't going to touch one board foot of her wormy rafters.

She would see to it. She would see to him.

It was quite a situation, Trent decided. He parried Coco's tea talk while the Amazon Queen, as he'd begun to think of C.C, sat on a sagging sofa, swinging a scarred boot and glaring daggers at him. Normally he would have politely excused himself, headed back to Boston to turn the whole business over to agents. But he hadn't faced a true challenge in a long time. This one, he mused, might be just what he needed to put him on track.

The place itself was an amazement—a crumbling one. From the outside it looked like a combination of English manor house and Dracula's castle. Towers and turrets of dour gray stone jutted into the sky. Gargoyles—one of which had been decapitated—grinned wickedly as they clung to parapets. All of this seemed to sit atop a proper two-story house of granite with neat porches and terraces. There was a pergola built along the seawall. The quick glimpse Trent had had of it had brought a Roman bathhouse to mind for reasons he couldn't fathom. As the lawns were uneven and multileveled, granite walls had been thrown up wherever they were terraced.

It should have been ugly. In fact, Trent thought it should have been hideous. Yet it wasn't. It was, in a baffling way, charming.

The way the window glass sparkled like lake water in the sun. Banks of spring flowers spread and nodded. Ivy rustled as it inched its patient way up those granite walls. It hadn't been difficult, even for a man with a pragmatic mind, to imagine the tea and garden parties. Women floating over the lawns in picture hats and organdy dresses, harp and violin music playing.

Then there was the view, which even on the short walk from his car to the front door had struck him breathless.

He could see why his father wanted it, and was willing to invest the hundreds of thousands of dollars it would take to renovate.

“More tea, Trenton?” Coco asked.

“No, thank you.” He sent her a charming smile. “I wonder if I might have a tour of the house. What I've seen so far is fascinating.”

C.C. gave a snort Coco pretended not to hear. “Of course, I'd be delighted to show you through.” She rose and with her back to Trent wiggled her eyebrows at her niece. “C.C., shouldn't you be getting back?”

“No.” She rose and, with an abrupt change of tactics, smiled. “I'll show Mr. St. James through, Aunt Coco. It's nearly time for the children to be home

from school.”

Coco glanced at the mantel clock, which had stopped weeks before at ten thirty-five. “Oh, well...”

“Don't worry about a thing.” C.C. walked to the doorway and with an imperious gesture of her hand waved Trent along. “Mr. St. James?”

She started down the hall in front of him then up a floating staircase. “We'll start at the top, shall we?” Without glancing back, she continued on and up, certain Trent would start wheezing and panting by the third flight.

She was disappointed.

They climbed the final circular set that led to the highest tower. C.C. put her hand on the knob and her shoulder to the thick oak door. With a grunt and a hard shove, it creaked open.

“The haunted tower,” she said grandly, and stepped inside amid the dust and echoes. The circular room was empty but for a few sturdy and fortunately empty mouse traps.

“Haunted?” Trent repeated, willing to play.

“My great-grandmother had her hideaway up here.” As she spoke, C.C. moved over to the curved window. “It's said she would sit here, on this window seat, looking out to sea as she pined for her lover.”

“Quite a view,” Trent murmured. It was a dizzying drop down to the cliffs and the water that slapped and retreated. “Very dramatic.”

“Oh, we're full of drama here. Great-Grandmama apparently couldn't bear the deceit any longer and threw herself out this very window.” C.C. smiled smugly. “Now, on quiet nights you can hear her pacing this floor and weeping for her lost lover.”

“That should add something to the brochure.”

C.C. jammed her hands into her pockets. “I wouldn't think ghosts would be good for business.”

“On the contrary.” His lips curved. “Shall we move on?”

Tight-lipped, C.C. strode out of the room. Using both hands, she tugged on the knob, then dug in a bit and prepared to put her back into it. When Trent's hand closed over hers, she jolted as though she'd been scalded.

It felt as though she had.

“I can do it,” she muttered. Her eyes widened as she felt his body brush hers. He brought his other arm around, caging her, trapping her hands under his. C.C.'s heart bounded straight into her throat, then back-flipped.

“It looks like a two-man job.” With this, Trent gave a hard tug that brought

the door to and C.C. back smartly against him.

They stood there a moment, like lovers looking out at a sunset. He caught himself drawing in the scent of her hair while his hands remained cupped over hers. It passed through his mind that she was quite an armful—an amazingly sexy armful—then she jumped like a rabbit, slamming back against the wall.

“It's warped.” She swallowed, hoping to smother the squeak in her voice. “Everything around here is warped or broken or about to disintegrate. I don't know why you'd even consider buying it.”

Her face was pale as water, Trent noted, making her eyes that much deeper. The panicked distress in them seemed more than a warped tower door warranted. “Doors can be repaired or replaced.” Curious, he took a step toward her and watched her brace as if for a blow. “What's wrong with you?”

“Nothing.” She knew if he touched her again she would go off like a rocket through what was left of the roof. “Nothing,” she repeated. “If you want to see anything else, we'd better go down.”

C.C. let out a long, slow breath as she followed him down the circular stairs. Her body was still throbbing oddly, as if she'd brushed a hand over a live wire. Not enough to get singed, she thought, just enough to let you know there was power.

She decided that gave her two reasons to get rid of Trenton St. James quickly.

She took him through the top floor, through the servants' wing, the storage rooms, making certain to point out any cracked plaster, dry rot, rodent damage. It pleased her that the air was chill, slightly damp and definitely musty. It was even more gratifying to see that his suit was sprinkled with dust and his shoes were rapidly losing their shine.

Trent peered into one room that was crowded with furniture boxes, broken crockery. “Has anyone gone through all this stuff?”

“Oh, we'll get around to it eventually.” She watched a fat spider sneak away from the dim light. “Most of these rooms haven't been opened in fifty

> years—since my great-grandfather went insane.”

“Fergus.”

“Right. The family only uses the first two floors, and we patch things up as we have to.” She ran her finger along an inch-wide crack in the wall. “I guess you could say if we don't see it, we don't worry about it. And the roof hasn't crashed down on our heads. Yet.”

He turned to study her. “Have you ever thought about turning in your socket wrench for a real estate license?”

She only smiled. “There's more down this way.” She particularly wanted to show him the room where she had tacked up plastic to cover the broken windows.

He walked with her, gingerly across a spot where two-by-fours had been nailed over a hole in the floor. A high arched door caught his eyes, and before C.C. could stop him, he had his hand on the knob.

“Where does this lead to?”

“Oh, nowhere,” she began, and swore when he pulled it open. Fresh spring air rushed in. Trent stepped out onto the narrow stone terrace and turned toward the pie-shaped granite steps.

“I don't know how safe they are.”

He flicked a glance over his shoulder. “A lot safer than the floor inside.” With an oath, C.C. gave up and climbed after him.

“Fabulous,” he murmured as he paused on the wide passageway between turrets. “Really fabulous.”

Which was exactly why C.C. hadn't wanted him to see it. She stood back with her hands in her pockets while he rested his palms on the waist-high stone wall and looked out.

He could see the deep blue waters of the bay with the boats gliding lightly over it. The valley, misty and mysterious, spread like a fairy tale. A gull, hardly more than a white blur, banked over the bay and soared out to sea.