Page 44 of Close Up

She sighed. “You are not the first man to inform me of that, although most of the others have put it somewhat more diplomatically.”

“Is that the real reason you’ve never married?” he asked.

“Apparently. My mother and my sister have both informed me on more than one occasion that I have a bad habit of scaring off any man who takes a serious personal interest in me. One of the reasons I liked dating Hamilton Merrick was because he wasn’t terribly curious about me. We had fun together and that was enough for both of us. And then Hamilton had to go and spoil things by asking me to marry him.”

“Maybe he cared more about you than you did about him.”

“Nope.”

Nick smiled. “Just to be clear, when I said you were a frighteningwoman I was making an objective observation. I was not stating my personal feelings.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“You don’t scare me, Vivian Brazier.”

“Give me time.”

Chapter 18

Last time I saw you, Uncle Pete, you were checking in to Dr. Presswood’s Health Spa for another try at treating the insomnia and the fever dreams,” Nick said. “How did it go?”

“About how you’d expect.” Pete Sundridge snorted and settled deeper into one of the wicker chairs. “Dr. Presswood turned out to be another fraud.”

“I told you that before you signed the check.”

Pete glared. “Don’t need you saying you told me so.”

Peter Sundridge had shown up at the front door of the villa a few minutes earlier. He had been dressed as a hotel gardener and escorted to the room by a hotel security guard.

It was easy to mistake Pete Sundridge for a shady character. He could have played a gunfighter in a Hollywood Western. Lean and tough, even in middle age, he had the eyes of a man who did battle with demons on a nightly basis. Each new dawn was a small, personal victory.

Nick understood. He and Pete were both direct descendants of Arden Sundridge, who had headed west in the late eighteen hundredsseeking escape from the fever dreams that constituted the family curse. Arden had started out prospecting for gold but quickly realized that the real money lay in the business of supplying the miners with the provisions they required to chase their fantasies. His next insight had been the understanding that, in the West, water would always be infinitely more valuable than gold. He had begun buying land that could support crops and livestock.

The Sundridges had never had serious problems when it came to making money. They had a talent for it, a true gift for taking calculated risks.

It was the nightmares that caused trouble.

All of the Sundridges experienced startlingly vivid dreams occasionally but, according to family lore and Nick’s own personal research, the curse of frequent, dramatic fever dreams struck hard only once or twice in each generation. He and Pete were the most recent examples.

Pete had chased quack cures for years. Nick had searched for answers in old books and the private journals of others who had suffered from similar afflictions.

The interesting thing, Nick concluded, was that it had been a long time since his uncle had appeared as cheerful and as enthusiastic as he did today. Going back to work for Luther Pell had been good for Pete.

“When it comes to frauds, it’s not like you’ve got any room to talk,” Pete continued. “Look at you, another fake marriage. That makes two in a row. You know, if you keep this up, it’s going to be impossible to keep a lid on the rumors.”

Nick glanced uneasily at the open doors of the villa. A short time ago Vivian had disappeared inside to get another pitcher of iced tea. She would return at any moment.

“What rumors?” he asked, careful to lower his voice.

“The ones about your annulment, of course.” Pete snorted again. “You know damn well there was talk. People wondered if maybe you hadn’t been able to be a real husband to Patricia. The fact that youhaven’t shown much interest in women in the past year hasn’t helped matters.”

“Uncle Pete, we’ve had this conversation. I told you to stop worrying about my personal life.”

“What personal life? That’s the problem. You haven’t got one.” Pete paused. A speculative gleam appeared in his eyes. “At least not until now.”

“There was no wedding this time so there won’t be any legalities to untangle when it’s over. Miss Brazier and I are here under strictly false pretenses. Everything about our relationship is fake. In case you didn’t notice, there are two bedrooms in this particular villa. We are using both of them. I’m on a job.”

“Uh-huh.” Pete studied the entrance of the villa. “An interesting woman, your Miss Brazier. Nothing like your last fake wife.”

---