Black Rose Page 0,66

the cold nearly numbed her fingers.

"Impressive ones. I've been working in here since about three." Grinning like a boy, he checked his watch. "Nearly four hours. It's been quiet as, you'll excuse the expression, a tomb. Until now."

"I suppose I set her off, as I was about to ask if you'd like to have dinner. David left a meal."

Together they began to retrieve the rest of the books. "No question that she doesn't like the two of us together."

"Apparently not."

He set the last book on the shelf. "So . . . what's for dinner?"

She glanced over at him, smiled. And in that moment realized that beyond the lust, there wasn't anything about him she didn't like. "Lasagna, which David bills as exceptional. As I've sampled it in the past, I can vouch for his claim."

"Sounds great. God, you smell good. Sorry," he added when her eyebrows lifted. "Thinking out loud. Listen, I've been able to eliminate more names, and I've been transcribing the interviews we've done so far. I've got a file here for you."

"All right."

"I'm going to work on tracking down some of the descendants of staff, and what we'll call the outer branches of the family tree. But what I'm seeing as the oldest living relative is your cousin Clarise - and happily she's local. I'd like to talk to her."

"Good luck with that."

"She's still in the area, at the . . ."

"Riverbank Center. Yes, I know."

"She puts me a full generation closer to Amelia. It'd be simpler, I'd think, to approach her if you spoke to her first."

"I'm afraid Cousin Clarise and I aren't on speaking terms, or any sort of terms whatsoever."

"I know you said there was a rift, but wouldn't she be interested in what I'm doing with the family?"

"Possibly. But I can assure you, she wouldn't take my call if I made one."

"Look, I understand about family schisms, but in this case - "

"You don't understand Clarise Harper. She dropped her surname years ago, choosing to go legally by her first and middle names. That's how entrenched in the Harper name she is. She never married. My opinion being she never found anyone soft or stupid enough to take her on."

Frowning, he hitched a hip on the table. "Is this your way of telling me you don't want me contacting her, because - "

"I hired you to do a job, and don't intend to tell you how to go about it, so don't get your back up. I'm telling you she's chosen to banish me and mine from her plane of existence, which is just fine by me. The one good thing I can say about her is once she's made up her mind on something, she follows through."

"But you don't have any objection to me talking to her, involving her."

"None. Your best bet is to write her - very formally - and introduce yourself, being sure to use the doctor part, and any other impressive credentials you might have at hand. If you tell her you intend to do a family history on the Harpers, and play up how honored you would be to interview her, and so on, she might agree."

"This is the one you kicked out of the house, right?"

"In a manner of speaking. I don't recall telling you about that."

"I talk to people. She's not the one you chased off with a Weedwacker."

Amusement, very faint, ran over her face. "You are talking to people."

"Part of the job."

"I suppose. No, I didn't chase her with a Weedwacker. That was the gardeners. And it wasn't a Weedwacker, come to that. It was a fan rake, which was unlikely to do any serious damage. If I hadn't been so mad and thinking more clearly, I'd've grabbed the loppers those idiots had used on my mimosa trees. At least with those I could've given them a good jab in the ass as they skeddadled."

"Loppers. Would those be . . ." He made wide scissoring motions with both arms.

"Yes, that's right."

"Ouch. Back to your cousin. Why'd you give her the boot?"

"Because when I invited her, to my lasting regret, to a family barbecue here years ago, she called my sons disreputable brats and stated - she without chick or child - that if I were a proper mother I'd've taken a switch to them regularly. She then called Harper a born liar, as he was entertaining some of his young cousins with stories about the Bride, and told him to shut his mouth."

He angled his