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From the “People Are Talking”

Column of the

Eastwick, Connecticut, Gazette

All of local society is abuzz with rumors that the wedding of the year—between the heiress of a certain very old Eastwick family and her almost equally well-connected fiancé—might not happen.

Of course, this wedding has been postponed so many times that some people wondered whether the bride was really ready to get married. But we thought she meant it this time. The wedding invitations have been chosen, and all the arrangements—right down to the name cards and the place settings—have been made.

And yet we hear the bride-to-be is having second thoughts. Hmm…Could that have anything to do with the sudden reappearance in our little town of another man—a very handsome, very troublesome man the lady is rumored to have been, um…“involved” with years ago…?

The Soon-To-Be-Disinherited Wife
Jennifer Greene

Acknowledgment

Special thanks and acknowledgment is given to Jennifer Greene for her contribution to the Secret Lives of Society Wives miniseries.

Contents

Acknowledgment

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Coming Next Month

One

Emma Dearborn felt an itch. Not a little itch. A maddening, unrelenting itch—right between her shoulder blades, where she couldn’t reach it.

Emma wasn’t prone to itches and was almost never guilty of fidgeting, which was probably why she remembered experiencing the same terrorizing itch sensation before. It had only happened twice in her life. The first time, she’d accidentally driven her dad’s restored priceless Morgan into Long Island Sound at Greenwich Point when she was sixteen. The car had been recovered; her dad nearly hadn’t. The other time, her date for the annual Christmas cotillion had turned ugly, and she’d had to walk home in her long white satin dress and heels in a snowstorm, crying the whole time.

Since those days, of course, she was no longer a novice with driving or men. More to the point, the itch this time couldn’t possibly relate to some impending traumatic event. Her life was going splendiferously.

Impatiently she took a long gulp of mint-raspberry tea. Mentally she told herself to get over the damned itch and quit squirming. For Pete’s sake, there was nothing remotely wrong. Everything around her reflected her serenely contented life.

“Emma?”

A basking-warm June sun soaked through the glass windows overlooking the pool outside. The Emerald Room was the one place in the Eastwick Country Club where members could dress casually. Today the pool was chock-full of kids fresh out of school and shrieking with joyful energy. Inside, moms in sandals and shorts elbowed with the business-lunch crowd in suits.

Emma, because she’d just chaired a meeting of the fund-raising committee, was stuck dressed on the formal side. Her light silk sheath was lavender-blue, not because it was her signature color. Emma objected to the whole pretentious concept of signature colors. Somehow, though, her closet mysteriously filled up with blues. Everyone else in the group was dressed more laid-back—not that anyone cared today about clothes.

The Debs had missed their traditional lunch last month—everyone was so darn busy!—which meant they all had to talk at once to catch up.

Harry, the bartender, had kindly reserved the malachite table by the doors, not just giving them the best view but also a little privacy for their gossip. Felicity and Vanessa and Abby were all there.

Emma’s heart warmed to the laughter—even if that itch was still driving her crazy. The friends were closer than sisters. They’d all grown up together, attended the same private school, knew each other’s most embarrassing moments—and tended to bring them out at these lunches. If the teasing ever lagged, there was always their debutante history to haul out of storage. What were friends for if not to savor and embellish the most mortifying events in one’s life? And Caroline Keating-Spence had joined them for lunch this time.

“Emma, are you sleeping?”

Quickly she whipped her head toward Felicity, not realizing that she’d dropped out of the conversation. “Not sleeping, honest. Just kind of woolgathering what a long history we have together…how much fun we’ve always had.”

“Yeah, sure.” Vanessa winked to the rest of them. “She covered up nicely, but we all know she’s engaged. Naturally she wasn’t listening to us. She’s at that moony stage.”

Felicity chuckled. “Either that or that big clunk of a sapphire on her finger is blinding her. Hells bells, it blinds the rest of us, too. What an original engagement ring. But that’s exactly what I was trying to ask you about, Em. How’s everything going with the wedding plans?”

Again she felt that exasperating itch spider up her spine. This was getting downright crazy. Her engagement to Reed Kelly was yet another thing that was going totally—totally—right in her life. At twenty-nine years old, she’d stopped believing she’d ever be married.

Actually the truth was that she’d never wanted to be.

“Everything’s going fine,” she assured them all, “except that Reed seems to have arranged the whole honeymoon before we’ve finalized the wedding plans.”

They all laughed. “You two have set a date, though, right?”

Another shooting itch. “Actually we’ve reserved Eastwick’s ballroom for two different Saturdays, but between my schedule at the gallery and Reed’s racing schedule with the horses, we still haven’t pinned one down for sure. I promise, this group will be the first to know. In fact, you’ll probably know before I do, knowing how fast this group picks up secrets.”

They all chortled—and agreed—and then moved on to the next victim. Felicity, being Eastwick’s foremost wedding planner—which meant that she excelled in both original extravaganzas and gossip—was always full of news.

As the freshest scandals were brought out to air, Emma glanced at Caroline, who seemed oddly quiet. Of course, it was hard to get a word in with the Debs all talking simultaneously, but Caroline hadn’t joined in the laughter. And now Emma noticed her signaling Harry for her third glass of wine.

The itch was close to driving Emma to drink, too, but seeing Caroline guzzling down pinot noir distracted her. Heaven knew, the Debs had been known to enjoy a drink—and occasionally to overindulge. No one kiss and told in the group, not on each other. Emma wouldn’t normally care if Caroline was gulping down the pinot noirs, but drinking was so unlike her.

Caroline wasn’t one of the original core Debs group because she was a little younger. Emma had swooped her into the circle of friends, the same way she tended to peel wallflowers off the wall at social gatherings. Caroline was no wallflower, but there was a time she’d needed a little boost of self-confidence. Emma had gotten to know her well because of Garrett—Caroline’s older brother.

Again Emma felt a ticklish itch. This time a familiar one. Although her heart hadn’t dug up that old emotional history in a blue moon, Garrett Keating had been her first love. Just picturing him brought back that whole poignant era—the time in her life when she’d still believed in love, when she’d felt crazy-high just to be in the same room with him and equally pit-low miserable every second they’d had to be apart.

Everybody had to lose that silly idealism sometime, she knew. Still, she’d always regretted their breaking up before making love. Back then she’d held on to her virginity like a gambler unwilling to lay down her aces, yet so often since then she thought she’d missed the right time with the right man. Garrett’s kisses had awakened her sexuality, her first feelings of power as a woman…her first feelings of vulnerability and surrender, as well. She’d never forgotten him, never even tried. She wasn’t carrying a torch or anything foolish like that; it was just a first-love thing. He owned a corner of her heart, always would…. Abruptly Emma stopped woolgathering. Harry showed up at their table again.

The bartender served Caroline her third wine, which she immediately downed like water. Emma frowned. Everyone knew Caroline had had a rift with her husband, Griff, the year before—but they were back together now. Everyone had seen them nuzzling each other at the spring art fair as if they were new lovers. So what was the heavy deal with the wine?

“Murder!” someone said.

Emma’s head shot up. “Say what?”

Abby spoke up from the corner, her voice a thousand times more tentative than normal. “You’ve had your head in the clouds, Em. I don’t blame you, with a wedding coming up. But I was just telling the group what happened since I went to the police about my mother.”

“The police?” Emma knew about Abby’s mother’s death. Everyone did. Lucinda Baldwin—alias Bunny—had created the Eastwick Social Diary, which had dished all the dirt on the moneyed crowd in Eastwick. Marriages, cheating, divorces, touchy habits, legal or business indiscretions—if it was scandal worthy, Bunny somehow always knew and loved to tell. Her death had been a shock to everyone. “I know how young your mom was, Abby. But I thought someone said she had a heart condition that hadn’t been detected before, that that was what she died from—”

“That’s what I thought originally, too,” Abby affirmed. “But right after Mom died, I couldn’t face going through her things. It took me a while…but when I finally got around to opening my mom’s private safe, I just expected to find her journals and jewelry. The jewelry was there, but all her journals were gone. Stolen. They had to be. It was the only place she ever kept them. That’s when I first started worrying. And then, finding out that someone tried to blackmail Jack Cartright because of information in those missing journals added to my suspicions.”

“Abby’s become more and more concerned that her mom was murdered,” Felicity clarified.

“My God.” Scandal was one thing, but Eastwick barely needed an active police force. There hadn’t been a serious crime in the community in years, much less anything as grave as murder.

“I can’t sleep at night,” Abby admitted. “I just can’t stop thinking about it. My mom loved secrets. Loved putting together the Diary. And for darn sure, she loved scandals. But she never had a mean bone in her body. She had tons of things written down in her journals that she never used in the Diary because she didn’t want to hurt people.”

Emma groped to understand. “So that’s partly why you think she was murdered? Because someone stole those journals? Either because they wanted to use the information, or because they had a secret themselves they wanted covered up?”

“Exactly. But I still can’t prove it,” Abby said restlessly. “I mean, the journals are gone. That’s for sure. But I can’t prove the theft is related to her death. The police keep telling me that I don’t have enough to open up a new inquest. Honestly, they’ve been really nice—they all agree the situation sounds suspicious. But there’s no one to arrest, no suspects. I can’t even prove the journals were stolen.”

“But she’s positive they were,” Felicity filled in.

Abby nodded. “They had to be stolen. The safe is the only place my mother ever kept them. Unfortunately, the police can’t act just because I know something is true. There’s no evidence to prove my mother didn’t simply hide the journals somewhere else. And there isn’t a single suspect.”

The whole group clustered close to discuss the disturbing situation—and to support Abby—but eventually the Emerald Room filled up with kids and families. Serious talk became impossible. The women lightened up, chitchatted about family news, but eventually the group broke up.

In the parking lot Emma climbed into her white SUV, her mind spinning between Caroline’s troubling behavior at lunch and the worrisome suspicions about Bunny’s death. Still, by the time she turned on Main Street, her mood instinctively lifted.

Her art gallery, Color, was only a couple blocks off the main drag in town. Emma didn’t mind running the fund-raising committee for Eastwick’s country club or any of the other social responsibilities her parents pushed on her. If it weren’t for her parents—and a mighty huge trust fund coming to her on her thirtieth birthday—she couldn’t do the things she really loved. Most people never knew about the volunteer work she did with kids, but the whole community was well aware how much time and love she devoted to the gallery.

She parked in the narrow, crooked drive. The building was at the corner of Maple and Oak, and in June now, a profuse row of peonies bloomed inside the white picket fence. Typical of old Connecticut towns, Eastwick had tons of pre-Revolutionary history. Her building had once been a house. It was two hundred–plus years old, brick, with tall, skinny windows and a dozen small rooms—which was the advantage. Although something always seemed to need maintenance, from the plumbing to the electricity, she had a dozen rooms to display completely different kinds of artwork. Customers could roam around and examine whatever they liked in relative privacy.

By the time she bolted out of the SUV—and nearly tripped on the cobblestone steps—she was humming. A shipment of Alson Skinner Clark prints was due in late that afternoon. They needed sorting and hanging. And two weeks before, she’d come across an old Walter Farndon oil on canvas that was still stashed in the back room—her workshop—that needed cleaning and repair, which she loved doing. And a room on the second floor was vacant right now, just waiting for her to set up a display of local artists’ work, another project she couldn’t wait to take on.

Her gallery rode the edge of making a profit and not. Emma knew perfectly well she could have run it more efficiently, but she’d always known she had the trust fund coming. It wasn’t the money that mattered to her but the freedom to open up art to the community, to be part of making something beautiful in people’s lives.

She’d never told anyone how important that goal of beauty was to her. The Debs would just roll their eyes at her goofy idealism. Her family would sigh as if she’d never understand practical reality—at least, reality on their terms. And maybe all of them were right, but when Emma opened the ornate red-lacquer door into Color, she felt a sweeping burst of plain old happiness.

“Hey, Ms. Dearborn! I was hoping you’d be back by midafternoon. You got that crate from New York you were waiting for. Came in FedEx before noon.” Josh, who’d worked part time for her for years, blessed her with a shy smile. He was somewhere in the vicinity of sixty, skinny as a rail and paler than paint. Some said he’d been an artist once. Some said he was gay. Some said he’d had a too-long relationship with bordeaux. All Emma knew was that he’d walked in and started helping her when she first opened the place. He’d taught her tons.

“I can’t wait to get into it. You can watch for customers up front?”

“Sure thing.”

She glanced at her office, stashed her summer bag and spun around to zoom in the back room when the phone rang. When she grabbed it, she heard the familiar voice of her fiancé.

“Hey, sweetheart. I was wondering if you had time for dinner tonight. I’m tied up most of the afternoon but pretty sure I could make it into town around, say, seven.”

Instinctively she twisted her arm behind her to claw at that strange, aggravating itch again. The restless, stressy feeling that had been bugging her for hours suddenly fiercely intensified. “Sure,” she said. “How’s your day?”

“Couldn’t be better. Bought a honey of a stallion…”

Standing with the phone to her ear, close to the window, she ignored the itch and suddenly, slowly lifted her hand. The sapphire on her left hand was from Sri Lanka. Reed had taken her to a jeweler, shown her a bed of sapphires, only argued when she’d first tried to pick a smaller stone. The ring was more than a breathtaking gem. It was a symbol of something she’d been so positive she’d never have.

She’d always been positive that marriage wasn’t for her. She liked men fine and totally adored kids. But so many couples in Eastwick, including her parents, seemed more like business mergers than love affairs. Sex was a commodity pretty much like any other. Emma didn’t knock anyone else’s choices, she just never wanted that kind of life. Yet when Reed asked her to marry him, well…maybe he’d never made her heart race or her mood go giddy, but damn. He was such a good guy. Impossible not to love. When it came down to it, she’d easily said yes, recognizing that he was probably the only man she could imagine being married to.

Today, she felt no differently than she’d felt the day he’d slid the engagement ring on her finger.

It was just…she couldn’t seem to quell the strange, edgy sensation of panic that had been hounding her mood for hours now. “I can’t wait for tonight!” she assured him brightly.

But when she hung up the phone, guilt smacked her in the heart. What kind of goofy woman was she that she’d rather spend the evening unpacking old crates in the back of her gallery than go out to a romantic dinner with a man she loved?

Four-thirty in the afternoon, any weekday afternoon, always turned into a work frenzy. Garrett Keating had hired a driver about four years ago, not because he didn’t enjoy driving himself—even in the craziness of downtown Manhattan—but because the crises automatically seemed to kick in during that late-afternoon time frame. This afternoon, typically, he’d left his investment-banking firm less than ten minutes ago, yet his cell had rung nonstop. As he sat in the backseat, his briefcase was open and papers were scattered everywhere.

“Keating,” he barked into the receiver for the latest interruption.

An unfamiliar female voice answered. “Mr. Garrett Keating? Caroline Keating-Spence’s brother?”

Immediate worry clawed his pulse. “Yes. What’s this about?”

“Your sister asked us to call you. This is Mrs. Henry, the senior day nurse in ICU at Eastwick—”

“Oh my God. Is she all right?”

“We believe she will be, in time. But the circumstances are a little touchy. Your parents have been here, but they seem to upset your sister more than help. Because Mrs. Keating-Spence is in such a fragile state of mind, when she asked for you—”

“I’ll be there as fast as I can make arrangements. Which will be immediately. But what exactly is wrong?”

“I wouldn’t normally say over the phone if your sister hadn’t asked me to convey at least part of the situation. Her husband is out of the country. Her parents are possibly too upset to make the situation easier. So—”

“Just tell me.”

“She took in an extensive quantity of mixed alcohol and medication.” A short silence. “Her parents—your parents—are quite determined that your sister did this accidentally. No one on the medical staff has any doubt that your sister had to know exactly what she was doing.” Another short silence. “I believe it best to be blunt. When she first came in, no one was sure we could bring her back. That medical crisis is over now, but—”

“I’ll be there,” Garrett said swiftly and disconnected.

Ed, his driver, met his eyes in the rearview mirror. “Sounds like there’s a problem?”

“Yes. I have to leave town. Immediately. I’ll give you a list of things I’d appreciate your handling at the apartment….”

Garrett ran nonstop for the next few hours, fear and guilt shadowing his heart. He handled millions of dollars every day, juggled a pressure-cooker workload, so how had he failed so badly at finding a few minutes for his sister?

On the long, silent drive to Eastwick, he couldn’t stop thinking about Caro. He adored his sister. They’d always been thick as thieves, allied against parents who’d never had time or interest in raising children. When Caroline married, naturally Garrett had retreated. But a year ago, when he heard she was having trouble with Griff, he’d stepped back in, prepared to shoot the son of a bitch—any son of a bitch—who dared to hurt his sister.

All his life, though, he’d been better at work than relationships.

Business had been good, except that he’d always had a hard time putting a lid on his workaholic tendencies. Make one million, naturally he wanted to make five, then ten. He was generally connected to a computer or a phone twenty hours out of twenty-four. So maybe he had no love life or personal life, but he was thriving.

He was sure he’d been thriving.

But then Caroline had called four days ago and he just hadn’t found the time to call her back. She’d called again yesterday morning. He’d been planning to call her tonight. Really. For sure.

Only, damn it, maybe he’d have forgotten that the way he forgot everything else lately. Business had consumed him tighter than a tornado wind.

His sister, who’d always counted on him—who knew she could count on him, who’d never doubted he’d be there for her—had needed help. And he’d flunked the course.

By the time he reached the outskirts of Eastwick, night had fallen, his stomach was churning and his heart feeling sharp-sick. It wasn’t just guilt; it was caring. So many people believed he was cold-blooded—and maybe he was; that was what made him good in business. But he wasn’t cold about his sister. He fiercely loved her.

He’d just failed her this time. And he couldn’t, wouldn’t, forgive himself.

At the hospital he locked the car and jogged for the door, still wearing the navy suit he’d worn all day, not having eaten in God knows how long. He didn’t care. He shot through the doors, jabbed the elevator button for three, ran.

He hadn’t been home—much less near Eastwick General Hospital—in a blue moon and then some. But the structure hadn’t noticeably changed since he was a kid. He’d have known his way around even if his family hadn’t donated a wing or two over the years. Critical care was the isolated unit off the third floor in the back—the location chosen because it had a helipad on the roof.

The CC wing was quiet. The sound of machines and monitors made more noise than the patients. Lights dimmed after nine. He didn’t immediately see a nurse or doctor, so simply hiked past each glass-doored cubicle, looking for his sister. The unit held only ten beds, usually more than needed even in emergency circumstances. Six beds were filled—not one of them with his sister.

Finally he found a doctor emerging from the last door. “I’m Garrett Keating. I was told my sister, Caroline Keating-Spence—”

“Yes, Mr. Keating. She was here until late this afternoon. We just moved her a couple hours ago to a private room.”

“So she’s better.” For that instant, it was all he wanted to hear.

“You’ll need to speak with her doctor, but the nurse will tell you her room—”

More rigmarole. More running. He took the stairs rather than waiting for the elevator—he’d never been good at waiting, and there wasn’t a chance he could pretend to be patient tonight. Room 201. That’s where they told him to go. A private room with a twenty-four-hour monitor. Garrett suspected the monitor meant that either his sister wasn’t out of the woods yet or that they feared she’d try suicide again.

Even the nurse hadn’t specifically used the word suicide, but Garrett immediately knew what she hadn’t said—because he knew his sister. This last year, once she’d mended the breach with her husband, Caroline had seemed solid and happy, not as fragile as she’d been for so long. Yet Garrett knew her. How the baggage of their childhood had affected her. How deeply she felt things. How fiercely she hid those feelings.

Some people would never buy the farm, but Caroline was always someone who couldn’t quite close the gate to depression.

He scraped a hand through his hair and suddenly halted outside 201. He felt as if he’d been running hell-bent for leather for hours, which was fine but not how he wanted his sister to see him. He forced himself to stand still for a few minutes, pull it all together, concentrate on pulling off an image of calm strength.

A nurse buzzed past him. Then two aides. He took a step toward the door, when suddenly a woman walked out of Caroline’s room. She almost ran straight into him—would have if he hadn’t instinctively reached out to steady her.

Her head shot up. A mane of silky dark hair fell to shoulder length, framing a cameo face—elegant bones, huge eyes bluer than violet, a pale mouth with the lipstick worn off.

Her striking looks would have ransomed his attention even if he didn’t know her…but he did.

Her name didn’t pop into his head in that second, probably because, hell, his mind was gone after these past stress-packed hours. Yet stress or no stress, he immediately remembered her eyes. He remembered kissing her. He remembered dancing in the grass at midnight, remembered laughing…the way he never seemed to laugh with other people, not then or now. But she was different. She’d made him laugh. Made him fall harder in love than a crash.

Of course, that was aeons ago.

A lifetime and more.

“Garrett,” she said gently. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Emma.” He’d known her name all along. It was just that the memories had rushed into his head faster than the prosaic facts. “You’ve been with my sister?”

“Yes. It’s past visiting hours, but…” She hesitated. “I think no one wants to leave her alone. Your parents were here until about a half hour ago. In fact, I just stayed in the hall—but I heard her talking, realized she was upset. So when I saw them leave, I went in. I didn’t know what else to do. Except try to be there for her. She’s fallen asleep now.” Again she hesitated. A wisp of a smile softened her face. “It’s good to see you.”

“Not under these circumstances.”

“No. In fact, I remember your saying you’d never come back to Eastwick if you could help it.”

He remembered that suddenly, all too well. It was why he’d broken it off with her all those years ago—because he’d rather give up anything, everything, than live in this damn town. But that was how he’d felt at twenty-one, an age when everything was an ultimatum. An age when you assumed you didn’t need anyone ever. An age when it was so amazingly easy to be self-righteous.

Now he looked at Emma and thought she’d grown into her looks. She used to be lovely, but she’d gone far beyond lovely now. She was wearing blue pants, a dark cotton sweater. Dressed comfortably for a hospital visit, nothing fancy, but her choice of clothes showed off her long, lean body. There was pride in her posture, in her eyes. A poise she’d never had as a girl.

A loneliness.

She looked as if she wanted to say something else, but then shook her head. “You’ll want to go in to see her. And I’m just leaving—”

“Emma, if you wouldn’t mind…”

She cocked her head.

“I do want to see her. Right now. But if she’s fallen asleep, could you wait just a couple minutes? I’d appreciate hearing your impression of what the situation is—”

“Her doctor can tell you the facts. I really don’t know—”

“I’ll get all that. But I’d like the opinion of a friend. That is, if you can spare the time? I realize it’s already late.”

“Of course I can spare the time,” she said.

Again she offered him a smile. A smile like a gift—that’s how he used to think of smiles and laughter from her. She’d given him so much, so freely from the heart. Every moment with her had been like discovering something he’d never known he’d missed.

Just seeing her face brought that feeling back.

But then, of course, he strode in to see his sister.