Mercury Rising

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

“M om?”

Virginia Elliott turned from the window. “Ah. Thank you, dear.” Jane gave her the fresh-cut blush-pink roses she’d just wrapped in a cone of newspaper. “So lovely…” Virginia brought them close, breathed in their scent. “You do have a way in the garden. Your aunt Sophie would be proud.”

Jane’s beloved Aunt Sophie Elliott had been a single lady all her life. When she’d died, nearly three years ago now, she left Jane her beautiful old house and the gorgeous garden surrounding it.

Her mother turned back to the window. “I notice your new neighbor is at home.”

“Yes.” Jane kept her voice and her expression as bland as a clean white sheet. “He does travel a lot, though.”

Virginia had the roses in her left hand. Her right strayed to the pearls at her throat. She fondled them, ticking them off like the beads of a rosary. “He was out there, on the side porch, just a moment ago.” Each word was heavy with disdain.

Jane resisted the urge to say something sarcastic. Well, Mother. It is his house. I suppose he has the right to be out on the porch.

Word around town was that Cade Bravo owned an ostentatious new house in Las Vegas and a condo in nearby Lake Tahoe. He’d taken the small town of New Venice completely by surprise when he’d bought the Lipcott place next-door to Jane’s. A run-down farmhouse-style Victorian seemed the last place he would ever want to live.

But the house wasn’t run-down anymore. Renovations had gone on for months. Finally the various work crews had picked up and moved on and the new owner had taken up residence.

“At least he had the grace to respect the integrity of the original home,” Virginia said grudgingly, hand still at her pearls.

Jane thought he had done a beautiful job with the old house. It looked much as it must have when it was first built, at the turn of the last century, a house a lot like Jane’s house, one that harkened back to simpler, more graceful times, with an inviting deep wraparound porch and fish scale shingles up under the eaves.

Virginia muttered, “Still. One of those Bravo boys living on Green Street. Who ever could have imagined such a thing?” Green Street was wide and tree-lined. The charming old houses on it had always been owned by respectable and prosperous members of the New Venice community, people from well-established local families—the Elliotts and the Chases, the Moores and the Lipcotts.

True, Cade Bravo had surprised everyone by prospering. In that sense, he fit the profile for a resident of Green Street. Was he respectable? Not by Virginia Chase Elliott’s exacting standards. But then, in Virginia’s thoroughly biased opinion, no Bravo was—or ever could be—considered respectable.

“Does he bother you, honey?” Her mother was looking right at her now.

“Of course not.”

“He was always such a wild one—the worst of the bunch, everyone says so. Takes after that mother of his.” Virginia’s gray eyes narrowed when she mentioned Caitlin Bravo. Her hand worried all the harder at her pearls. “I suppose he’s got the women in and out all the time.”

“No. He’s very quiet, actually, when he’s here—and you should get those roses home. Cut an inch off the stems, at a slant, and—”

Her mother waved the hand that had been so busy with the pearls. “I know, I know. Remove any leaves below the waterline.”

Jane smiled. “That’s right. And use that flower food I gave you.”

Virginia sighed. “I will, I will—and how is Celia?”

Celia Tuttle was one of Jane’s two closest friends. Her name was Celia Bravo now. A little over two months ago, at the end of May, Celia had married Cade’s oldest brother, Aaron.

“Happy,” said Jane. “Celia is very, very happy.”

One of Virginia’s eyebrows inched upward. “Pregnant, or so I heard.”

“Yes. She and Aaron are thrilled about that.”

“I meant, a little too pregnant for how long they’ve been married.”

Jane shook her head. “Mother. Give it up. Celia is happy. Aaron loves her madly. They are absolutely adorable together, totally devoted—and looking forward to having a baby. I’d like to find a man who loves me the way Aaron Bravo loves his wife.”

Her mother made a prim noise in her throat. Jane folded her arms and gave Virginia a long, steady look heavily freighted with rebuke.

Virginia relented. She waved her hand again. “All right, all right. Celia is a sweet girl and if she’s happy, I’m happy for her.”

“So good of you to say so.”

“Don’t get that superior tone, please. I don’t like it when you do that—and I know, I know. Celia is your dearest friend in the world, along with Jillian.” Jane and Celia and Jillian Diamond had been best friends since kindergarten. “I ought to have sense enough never to say a word against either of them.”

“Yes, you should.”

Virginia stepped closer, the look in her eyes softening. She reached out and smoothed Jane’s always-wild hair in a gesture so tender, so purely maternal that Jane couldn’t help but be soothed by it. Jane did love her mother, though Virginia was not always easy to love.

“You haven’t mentioned how your date went Friday.”

Jane gave her mother a noncommittal smile. “I had a nice time.”