Hidden Treasures

He was turning away from the window when he caught a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye. Bert rounded the corner of the house with Meghan one step behind her.

Meghan’s chirp of surprise must have had something to do with the carousel because she made a beeline directly over to it. With a delighted smile, she ran her hands up the white horse’s face and over its mane as if it were real.

Cade knew he shouldn’t be spying but stood there, riveted in place, as Meghan hoisted herself onto its back and wrapped her arms around its neck.

He winced as the camera, hanging by a cord around her neck, slammed against the horse’s chest, but it didn’t seem to faze her. He would have thought a photographer would be a little more careful with the most important tool of her trade.

When Bert slipped between the horses and fished around inside the mechanical box, Cade’s shoulders tensed.

He doubted the thing worked after so many years. Even as a kid, he’d thought the simple tune the carousel played sounded muffled and rather tinny. Like the song a jack-in-the-box played right before a clown popped out of the top.

After a few minutes Bert gave up and Meghan slid off the horse’s back. And headed toward the mermaid fountain. Another one of his mother’s salvage-yard finds that had found its way to the island.

Maybe that was why no one in Willoughby would talk to him, Cade thought sourly. No doubt the old-timers remembered having to transport his mother’s purchases to the island by fishing boat.

“…it work?” Meghan’s lilting voice drifted through the screen as she started to scoop handfuls of wet leaves out of the fountain and drop them on the ground.

The fountain. Cade shook his head. One more reason to talk Parker out of her crazy idea to hold the wedding ceremony and reception on the island. Without an army of landscapers to tackle years of neglect, the place would never be ready for guests by the following weekend.

And Parker would have a fit if she saw the state the house and grounds were in. No doubt she still carried the memories of the way it was when they were children—not realizing Douglas had forbidden Bert to do anything other than the simplest maintenance projects in the house.

Cade still didn’t understand why Bert had stayed on. He knew Bert and his mother had been close friends. “Twins separated at birth” was the way Genevieve laughingly introduced Bert to visitors to the island. When he’d asked Douglas why Bert had stayed, his father had brushed aside the question in his typical gruff manner and muttered something about Bert not having anywhere else to go.

That didn’t surprise Cade, since Bert belonged to the group of artists that Genevieve had counted as friends. What surprised him was his father’s benevolence. Especially since Douglas had completely wiped out any reminders of Genevieve.

After Cade’s mother walked out on them, they’d simply continued on as if Genevieve had never been a part of their lives. Judith had moved into the suite of rooms in the east wing of their home and taken over the household.

And Cade had never seen his mother again.

The one time he’d gathered the courage to ask if she was coming back, the look of raw pain in his father’s eyes had discouraged him from ever bringing up the subject again.

Aunt Judith however, hadn’t been as silent with her opinions. There’d been anger, not pain, in her voice when she’d explained that Genevieve had found being a wife and mother too confining. That she’d gone back to the lifestyle she was more suited for.

Cade shook away the unwelcome memories that crowded in. The sooner he wrapped things up on the island, the sooner he could leave. All he had to do was convince Parker that without a landscape team working around the clock—for the next six months—Blue Key Island wouldn’t be the romantic setting for the wedding of her dreams she imagined it would be.

Cade had never understood, given Douglas’s keen business sense, why his father had held on to the island all these years. He’d seen the tax bills. Why keep shelling out money for a place they hadn’t visited for years? When they needed a getaway, they took advantage of their ownership in a luxury time-share.

He’d make sure Bert had a generous retirement package and close this particular chapter of Halloway history for good.

Selling the island was the logical solution.

Meghan couldn’t believe Cade wanted to sell the island.

Everywhere she turned she saw evidence that the house and the surrounding grounds had been, at one time, someone’s pride and joy.

A fountain, complete with a mermaid perched regally on a pearl inside an algae-stained oyster shell, created the centerpiece of the courtyard. Layers of decaying leaves filled the bowl instead of water and the rusty spout looked as if it hadn’t been used in years, but the fountain hadn’t lost its charm.

And even though grass had pushed its way through gaps in the stone footpaths and weeds vied with overgrown beds of perennials for sun and soil, when Meghan looked closely she could still see the outline of the garden’s original design.

And an honest-to-goodness carousel stood in the shade of a sugar maple. She still couldn’t get over that.

Meghan unearthed a green penny from the bottom of the fountain and scraped off a thin layer of slime with her thumbnail.

“Did you find something?” Bert asked.

Meghan held out the penny. “Someone forgot their wish.”

Bert’s smile was pensive as she took the coin from Meghan’s hand. “I’m afraid there are a lot of those in there.”

“It’s such a shame—” Meghan bit back the rest of the sentence. She liked Bert and didn’t want the woman to think she was being critical. It would have been impossible for one person to keep up with the maintenance required for a piece of property the size of Blue Key Island.

“Things are in such disrepair?” Bert finished the sentence for her.

“I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t worry. I know you didn’t,” Bert interrupted. “Repairs to the house are the only ones I’m able to authorize. To tell you the truth, I’m more like a well-paid, permanent houseguest than a caretaker.” There was no undercurrent of bitterness in Bert’s tone, only a quiet resignation that wrenched Meghan’s heart.