Loveknot. Marisa Carroll

desk in the former storage room he’d appropriated for his office. It was a bare-bones operation—desk, chair, telephone fax machine and not much else—but he didn’t mind. “How did it go?”

      “Not quite as smoothly as I’d hoped,” Devon admitted. “By the way, Alyssa Baron is one foxy lady.”

      “Yes, she is,” Edward said, as if it made no difference to him whatsoever. “A very foxy lady.”

      “The kind of lady worth waiting for,” his stepson added, as if it made no difference whatsoever to him, either.

      “Yes, she is.” Edward didn’t elaborate on the statement. He shuffled the papers he’d been reading into a stack and set them aside. “I take it she didn’t jump at our offer.”

      Devon laughed a bit sheepishly. “You might say that. You didn’t tell me she can be a real ice queen when she sets her mind to it. I expected to rattle her pretty easily.”

      “And?” Edward couldn’t help asking.

      “She listened to what I had to say. Said she’d consider the offer and showed me the door.”

      “She’s Judson Ingalls’s daughter, all right. It looks like I’ll have to speak to the lady myself.” Edward found he was looking forward to confronting Alyssa. They’d been no more than polite acquaintances since his return to Tyler. They’d seen each other infrequently, spoken rarely and never about themselves. With the exception of that one fleeting kiss at Christmas almost a year before, under the mistletoe, they hadn’t touched at all. He didn’t know what he wanted from a relationship with Alyssa Ingalls Baron. He only knew he wanted one. But before that could happen, there was business to conduct.

      “I thought that’s what you might say,” Devon said as he rose from his chair. “Well, I’ve done what you asked of me. Now it’s your turn. You promised to show me the attic. I’d like to see if there’s anything of Margaret Ingalls’s still up there while the daylight’s good.”

      “So that’s why you’re dressed that way,” Edward said, rising from his seat. Devon was wearing gray sweatpants and a sweatshirt from Columbia, his alma mater. “I thought maybe you were going to ask me to join you for a run.”

      “Maybe later. Right now I want to play detective,” Devon said, only half-joking.

      “I’ll show you the way. We rewired the attic when we were working on the lounge and reception area, but it’s still minimal lighting up there.”

      “That’s what I figured. Sundown comes pretty early around here,” Devon commented as they left the office and headed for the out-of-the-way staircase that led to the attic.

      “I told you the winters are long and cold.”

      “And hardly a ski lift in sight.”

      Edward glanced sharply at his stepson. Devon’s face was turned away, however, so he couldn’t tell if he was in earnest or pulling his leg. “You can always join your mother in Switzerland.”

      The younger man shrugged. “Maybe,” he said, as Edward opened the inconspicuous attic door and snapped on the overhead light.

      The stairway was a new addition, narrow and utilitarian, but safer and more convenient than the hidden staircase in Margaret Ingalls’s room, the only other access to the attic space. Edward would have to remember to tell Devon about it.

      “For a few weeks over Christmas,” Devon went on. “If there isn’t anything else to do.” He grinned wickedly. “And if I can get the time off from my slave driver of a boss.” He started climbing the stairs.

      “It might be arranged. If,” Edward went on, emphasizing the word slightly, “negotiations for Ingalls F and M are on schedule.”

      “That’s a big if,” Devon said, arriving at the top of the steep flight of steps. “Maybe I’ll have a nervous collapse, so mother can whisk me away for some R and R on the slopes.”

      “Don’t count on it,” Edward warned.

      Devon laughed. “I won’t. Okay. Where do I start?”

      “Good question.” Edward surveyed the flotsam and jetsam of three generations of Ingallses, their friends and relatives, piled along the walls and on the floor of the big, low-ceilinged room. “I believe those boxes and trunks over there—” he pointed across the way “—belonged to Margaret. At least that’s where the investigators spent most of their time.”

      “We probably won’t find anything there,” Devon said thoughtfully. He roamed around the room, head bent slightly to accommodate the low ceiling, switching on the single bulbs that hung at intervals from the central beam as he went. “And this stuff? Kids’ toys and a tricycle, and this white-painted bedroom furniture? Do you think it was Alyssa’s?”

      “Probably,” Edward said. “I was only the gardener’s son, you know. I don’t remember ever being allowed in any of the bedrooms.”

      “I think I’m going to start here,” Devon said, making up his mind quickly, the way his mother so often did. “I bet this other dresser and chest of drawers belonged to Margaret, too. They don’t match the set, but they’re all together. I think if we’re going to find anything useful it would be in Margaret’s personal things, not the lodge files.”

      “What makes you think that?”

      Devon shrugged broad shoulders. “Just a hunch. Like I said, she sounds like Mom in a lot of ways. She loves to keep track of personal things, all her social triumphs and romantic conquests, as much as she hates keeping any other type of records. You know that.”

      “I guess that’s as much of a reason to start looking over there as any. Good hunting,” Edward said as he prepared to head back downstairs.

      “Thanks.” Devon pulled on a drawer that had swollen shut with moisture. “I’m going to need it.”

      Edward closed the attic door behind him and headed across the lounge, back toward his office. He was surprised Devon had even considered not joining his mother in Switzerland for the ski season. He usually jumped at the chance to travel abroad. He was obviously more content in Tyler than Edward had ever thought possible for a child raised in Nikki and Arthur Addison’s milieu. But Devon had grown into a smart, savvy young man. He knew his own mind and used it. He wasn’t dazzled by the glitter of his mother’s crowd of seminoble European hangers-on. And he wasn’t fooled by Tyler’s sleepy, placid exterior, either. Below the glittering surface, his mother’s existence was essentially empty and sterile, while Tyler teemed with life.

      Over all the years and throughout his travels, Edward had maintained a strong awareness of his roots. He hadn’t always been happy in Tyler as a boy, but he’d been a part of the greater whole, for better or worse. He wanted to be part of that community spirit once again. That was one of the reasons he was determined to control Ingalls F and M, although no one, not even Devon, knew it. There were other, more pressing reasons for attempting to buy Judson Ingalls’s failing company. Boyhood sentimentality need not be listed as one of them.

      She was waiting for him when he walked into the lounge, and a part of him, deep down inside, was not surprised by her appearance.

      “Alyssa,” he said, smiling automatically, a reflex learned in a hundred boardrooms over the past thirty years. “How nice to see you.”

      “I’m not here to exchange pleasantries, Edward,” she said, not smiling at all, her blue eyes fierce with suppressed anger. “I want to talk. Business.”

      “Fine,” he said, picking up the seriousness of her mood, and the animosity, as well. “But let’s do it over a drink or a cup of tea. Out here in the lounge. I’m not about to get into a shouting match with you in my office.” He smiled again. “Besides, it’s not big enough. It used to be a linen closet, I think.”

      Alyssa almost smiled back. “What makes you think I won’t start shouting at you right here in the middle