“Wouldn't turn it down.”

“Never known you to turn down food—or a female.” Dutch cut a slice—a great deal larger than those he'd cut for the newlyweds—and shoved the plate in front of Nathaniel.

“I don't get any raspberries?”

“Eat what's in front of you. How come you ain't out there flirting with that skinny girl?”

“I'm working on it,” Nathaniel said with a mouthful of cake. “They're in the dining room, all of them. Family meeting.” He rose, poured himself coffee, dumped the rest of his rum in it. “They found some old book. And she's not skinny.” He had firsthand knowledge, now that he'd had Megan in his arms. “She's delicate.”

“Yeah, right.” He thought of Coco, those long, sturdy lines as fine as any well-crafted sloops. And snorted again. “All females are delicate—until they get a ring through your nose.”

No one would have called the women in the dining room delicate—not with a typical Calhoun argument in full swing.

“I say we burn it.” C.C. folded her arms across her chest and glared. “After everything we learned about Fergus from Bianca's journal, I don't know why we'd consider keeping his lousy account book around.”

“We can't burn it,” Amanda fired back. “It's part of our history.”

“Bad vibes.” Lilah narrowed her eyes at the book, now sitting in the center of the table. “Really bad vibes.”

“That may be.” Max shook his head. “But I can't go along with burning a book. Any kind of book.”

“It's not exactly literature,” C.C. mumbled.

Treat patted his wife's stiff shoulder. “We can always put it back where it came from—or give Sloan's suggestion some consideration.”

“I think a room designed for artifacts, mementos—” Sloan glanced at Amanda “—the pieces of history that go with The Towers, would add something. Not only to the hotel, but for the family.”

“I don't know.” Suzanna pressed her lips together and tried to be objective. “I feel odd about displaying Fergus's things with Bianca's, or Aunt Colleen's, Uncle Sean's and Ethan's.”

“He might have been a creep, but he's still a piece of the whole.” Holt toyed with the last of his coffee. “I'm going with Sloan on this one.”

That, of course, enticed a small riot of agreements, disagreements, alternate suggestions. Megan could only sit back and watch in amazement.

She hadn't wanted to be there at all. Not at a family meeting. But she'd been summarily outvoted. The Calhouns could unite when they chose.

As the argument swirled around her, she glanced at the object in question. When Amanda left it in her office, she'd eventually given in to temptation. After cleaning off the leather, she'd flipped through pages, idly totaling up columns, clucking her tongue at the occasional mistake in arithmetic. Of course, she'd scanned a few of the marginal notations, as well, and had found Fergus Calhoun a cold, ambitious and self-absorbed man.

But then, a simple account ledger hardly seemed worth this much trouble. Particularly when the last few pages of the books were merely numbers without any rhyme or reason.

She was reminding herself it wasn't her place to comment when she was put directly on the spot.

“What do you think, Megan, dear?” Coco's unexpected question had Megan blinking.

“Excuse me?”

“What do you think? You haven't told us. And you'd be the most qualified, after all.”

“Qualified?”

“It's an account book,” Coco pointed out. “You're an accountant.”

Somehow, the logic in that defeated Megan. “It's really none of my business,” she began, and was drowned out by a chorus of reasons why it certainly was. “Well, I...” She looked around the table, where all eyes were focused on her. ”I imagine it would be an interesting memento—and it's kind of fascinating to review bookkeeping from so long ago. You know, expenses, and wages for the staff. It might be interesting to see how it adds up, what the income and outgo was for your family in 1913.”

“Of course!” Coco clapped her hands. “Why, of course it would. I was thinking about you last night, Meg, while I was casting my runes. It kept coming back to me that you were to take on a project—one with numbers.”

“Aunt Coco,” C.C. said patiently, “Megan is our accountant.”

“Well, I know that, darling.” With a bright smile, Coco patted her hair. “So at first I didn't think much of it. But then I kept having this feeling that it was more than that. And I'm sure, somehow, that the project is going to lead to something wonderful. Something that will make all of us very happy. I'm so pleased you're going to do it.”

“Do it?” Megan looked helplessly at her brother. She got a flash of a grin in return.

“Study Fergus's book. You could even put it all on computer, couldn't you? Sloan's told us how clever you are.”

“I could, of course, but—”

She was interrupted by the cry of a baby through the monitor on the sideboard.

“Bianca?” Max said.

“Ethan,” C.C. and Lilah said in unison. And the meeting was adjourned.

What exactly, Megan wondered later, had she agreed to do? Somehow, though she'd barely said a word, she'd been placed in charge of Fergus's book. Surely that was a family matter.

She sighed as she pushed open the doors to her terrace and stepped outside. If she stated that obvious fact, in the most practical, logical of terms, she would be patted on the head, pinched on the cheek and told that she was family and that was all there was to it.

How could she argue?

She took a deep breath of the scented night air, and all but tasted Suzanna's freesias and roses. She could hear the sea in the distance, and the air she moved through was moist and lightly salty from it. Stars wheeled overheard, highlighted by a three-quarter moon, bright as a beacon.

Her son was dreaming in his bed, content and safe and surrounded by people who loved him.

Dissecting Fergus's book was a small favor that couldn't begin to repay what she'd been given.

Peace of mind. Yes, she thought, the Calhouns had opened the gates to that particular garden.

Too charmed by the night to close it out and sleep, she wandered down the curving stone steps to drift through the moon-kissed roses and starsprinkled peonies, under an arbor where wisteria twisted triumphantly, raining tiny petals onto the path.

“'She was a phantom of delight when first she gleamed upon my sight.'“

Megan jolted, pressing a hand on her heart when a shadow separated itself from the other shadows.

“Did I startle you?” Nathaniel stepped closer, the red tip of his cigar glowing. “Wordsworth usually has a different effect.”

“I didn't know you were there.” And wouldn't have come out had she known. “I thought you'd gone home.”

“I was passing a little time with Dutch and a bottle of rum.” He stepped fully into the moonlight. “He likes to complain about Coco, and prefers an audience.” He drew slowly on his cigar. For a moment, his face was misted by smoke, making it mysterious and beautiful. An angel cast from grace. “Nice night.”

“Yes, it is. Well...”

“No need to run off. You wanted to walk in the garden.” He smiled, reaching down to snap a pale pink peony from its bush. “Since it's nearly midnight, there's no better time for it.”

She accepted the blossom, told herself she wouldn't be charmed. “I was admiring the flowers. I've never had much luck growing them.”

“You have to put your heart in it—along with the water and fertilizer.”

Her hair was down, waving softly over her shoulders. She still wore the neatly tailored blue jacket and slacks she'd had on at dinner. A pity, he thought. It would have suited the night, and his mood, if she'd drifted outside in a flowing robe. But then, Megan O'Riley wasn't the type of woman to wander midnight gardens in swirling silks.

Wouldn't let herself be.

The only way to combat those intrusive gray eyes, other than to run like a fool, was conversation. “So, do you garden, as well as sail and quote the classics?” she asked him.

“I've an affection for flowers, among other things.” Nathaniel put a hand over the peony she held, and lifted it toward him so that he could enjoy its fragrance, and hers. He smiled at her over the feathered petals.

She found herself caught, as if in some slow-motion dream, between the man and the moonlight. The perfume of the garden seemed to rise up and swirl like the breeze, gently invading her senses. Shadows shifted over his face, highlighting all those fascinating clefts and ridges, luring her gaze to his mouth, curved now and inviting.

They seemed so completely alone, so totally cut off from the reality and responsibilities of day-to-day.

Just a man and a woman among star-dappled flowers and moonlit shadows, and the music of the distant sea.

Deliberately she lowered her lashes, as if to break the spell.

“I'm surprised you'd have time for poetry and flowers, with all the traveling.”

“You can always make time for what counts.”

The fact that the night held magic hadn't escaped him. But then, he was open to such things. There'd been times he'd seen water rise out of itself like a clenched fist, times he'd heard the siren song of mar-maids through shifting fog—he believed in magic. Why else had he waited in the garden, knowing, somehow knowing, she would come?

He released the flower, but took her free hand, linking their fingers before she could think of a reason he shouldn't. “Walk with me, Meg. A night like this shouldn't be wasted.”

“I'm going back in.” She looked back up just as a breeze stirred in the air. Wisteria petals rained down.