Windswept (5 page)

No, it’s more than a house, it’s a home. Our home.

James and Emily left us a wonderful heritage. I only hope we will prove worthy of it.

***

Present Day

Saturday, May 5

Late Saturday afternoon, Barrett drove her Honda down winding Memorial Drive. Posh neighborhoods lay to her right and left, she knew, but they were hidden by the thick woods and bushes, not to mention the high fences, lining the road.

“Be cool, be cool. It will be good news or he wouldn’t have called you,” she said out loud in the hopes she could calm herself down. “He wouldn’t want to reject you in person. He’s hard, but he’s not cruel.”

She hoped, she prayed. Maybe she’d just jumped too fast to the conclusion of doom like her brothers always accused her of doing. What exactly had he said during their conversation on the phone?

Davis had called just at the end of the birthday party for the eight-year-old daughter of Barrett’s best friend since the seventh grade, with whom she was staying. She had extricated herself from the jumble of presents, wrapping paper, cake, and shrieking little girls and taken her cell phone into another room.

“I have a proposition for you relating to the Windswept papers, Dr. Browning,” he had stated, his deep drawling voice making her heart race. She’d practically hyperventilated when he asked, “Would it be possible for you to come out to my house to talk about it?”

He’d told her he was on a tight schedule and to come right away, so she hadn’t stopped to change from her jeans. As she turned off Memorial and onto residential streets and looked at the large houses around her, she began to hope she hadn’t made a mistake by not putting on more businesslike clothing.

“Don’t worry,” she fussed at herself. “If he wants you, it doesn’t matter what you’re wearing.” She paused, frowned at her last words.

“Whatever.” She shook her head and felt the curls bounce. “The Windswept papers are what’s important.”

She glanced at her scribbled directions again. There was the sign for Hunter’s Creek Village, one of the Memorial-area towns surrounded by Houston and where Davis lived. She prepared to turn left. Within minutes, she pulled to a stop and some of her apprehensions about her attire returned.

Davis Jamison lived in a contemporary, glass-and-steel, two-story house tucked in a piney cul-de-sac and reached by a bridge over a small bayou. Encouraged by Houston’s semi-tropical climate, tall pine and oak trees and dense ligustrum bushes completely cut it off visually from its neighbors. A rich, dark green carpet of St. Augustine grass surrounded the house, and flower beds held azalea bushes and big clumps of gold and red day lilies. Crape myrtles lined the far edge of a parking area from which a driveway continued around the side of the house.

Barrett looked around as she climbed out of her Honda. She didn’t feel at all like she was surrounded by a big city. She could hear mockingbirds chattering and smell the new-mown grass as she climbed the three wide steps leading under a glass-roofed overhang to the front door. She rang the bell.

An Hispanic gentleman in his late fifties or early sixties answered the door and she identified herself. “Please come in,” he said and ushered her through a foyer into a large, sun-lit living room. “Please have a seat, and I’ll tell Mr. Jamison you’re here.”

Barrett thanked him and after he left, she turned in a complete circle to take in her surroundings. The interior of the house matched its exterior in contemporary starkness. The entry foyer was two stories high from its black granite floor to the top of its vaulted glass ceiling. A living room stretched away to the right of the front door and a dining room to the left, each two steps down from the foyer. Their ceilings were also double high, just at the level below the arc of the vault. The dining room was separated from the entry by what appeared to be a free-standing set of panels of intricately carved dark wood, but no barrier existed to the living room.

A wide staircase rose at the back of the foyer. A long balcony looked down on the entry and the dining room, and she could see the tops of doors, so rooms must open off this gallery. What few solid walls existed were a glossy white. The remaining ones were all shaded glass.

The living room in which she stood was probably larger than the entire lower floor of her condo. The long, charcoal gray leather sofa, black metal-and-leather Eames chairs, and white-marble-topped coffee table at the far end all had clean, uncluttered lines. Another grouping around a clear glass cube was made up of dark blue--what were those chairs with the curved chrome legs and curving seat and back called?--Barcelona chairs, that was it.

Thick pale-gray rugs delineated the seating areas, and the glossy, dark reddish-wood floor offered some contrast to the furniture. Between the panes of glass at the far end of the room, an expanse of black marble rose to the ceiling from the fireplace at its base. Above the fireplace hung a long abstract painting. Its bright swathes of red, purple, blue and yellow brought splashes of color to the room, but the effect seemed more like an assault on her eyes than a counterpoint to the green outside. A couple of abstract shiny silver-and-bronze sculptures stood on pedestals next to the front glass wall.

Although the air conditioning was set to a comfortable temperature, she couldn’t help but shiver. She sniffed and caught whiffs of both furniture polish and glass cleaner. Despite the sunshine, the colors in the painting, and the greenery outside, the room felt austere and somewhat bleak, as if nobody lived there. No family pictures or little personal mementos cluttered the side or coffee tables, no flowers added gaiety, no cooking smells overrode the scent of furniture polish, no soft throw pillows blurred the sharp lines. Even the leather couch seemed to have an edge.

Maybe the main, or only, purpose of this room was to entertain. She could easily imagine a glittering crowd of the wealthy and famous gathered here. Not exactly her kind of people, but certainly the type Davis Jamison might invite--those with the money to invest in high finance deals. She vaguely remembered reading about his party-going-and-giving activities in her research. She wondered if he had decorated the room or had a designer do it. What did the decor say about its owner?

No, not a topic to think about now.

Thanks to the glass walls, if she ignored the furniture, she could pretend she was outside. Through the glass on the side of the room opposite the front of the house, she saw a patio and pool, across which was another wing of the building. More St. Augustine grass stretched away from the far end of the pool to a low wall, on the other side of which the land appeared to drop away. She assumed Buffalo Bayou or one of its tributaries lay at the bottom of the drop.

Feeling distinctly out of place in her jeans, she sat gingerly on the edge of one of the Barcelona chairs and gazed out at the pool. The patio was a welcome contrast to the interior. Nothing abstract or hard-edged out there. Riotous red, white, and blue petunias overflowed large terra cotta planters, and pink roses and yellow hibiscus bloomed next to the windows. A jaunty blue-and-green umbrella rose over patio furniture with deep cushions covered in the same colors. This cheery space seemed to be almost inviting her to stretch out on a lounge or take a dip in the sparkling blue water. She definitely preferred the outside to the chilly inside.

She heard voices and rose to meet her host as he and the other man entered the room.

“Dr. Browning,” Davis said as he advanced, hand stretched out, a smile on his face. “I’m glad you could make it. Thank you for coming so promptly.”

“Thank you for inviting me.” Marveling again at the difference a smile made, she shook his hand and immediately felt a rush of heat in her body. Heat that seemed to follow his eyes as he looked her up and down. Oh, why hadn’t she taken the time to change clothes? She released his hand as quickly as possible.

“Shall I bring coffee or iced tea to your office, sir?” the Hispanic man said.

“Would you like something to drink, Dr. Browning?” Davis asked.

“No, thank you. I’ve had so much ice cream and cake I couldn’t hold another thing.” And she was probably on a severe sugar high.
Calm down. Don’t make a fool of yourself. And don’t babble.

“Oh, that’s right, you mentioned a birthday party when I called.” He didn’t take his eyes off her as he said, “Nothing for us, then, thank you, Gonzales.”

Barrett refused to let herself fidget under his gaze. He appeared pleased to see her, but his eyes had a calculating look--and a glint she couldn’t quite identify. She reminded herself he was known for making multilayered plans and she needed to keep her wits about her. She knew negotiating tactics dictated she wait for him to bring up the subject of their meeting so she wouldn’t be forced into the role of supplicant. Tired of his silence games, however, she decided to come right to the point. “Have you come to a decision about the Windswept collection, Mr. Jamison?”

“Possibly,” he drawled, then flashed her a smile again. He turned and headed for the foyer. “Come with me.”

As she followed him out, she shook her head to clear it from the effects of his voice’s velvet rumble and the Edgar-like roguish sparkle in his eyes. What was going on here? What was he up to? She felt a little relieved as she took note of his khaki pants and navy knit shirt--and slim hips and broad shoulders. At least he was dressed casually and she didn’t have to face the power suit on top of everything else.

They walked down the front hall, past the stairway on the left and a wall of more glass on the right, through another door and into another hall. Barrett realized they had essentially walked around the pool into the wing she had seen from the living room.

“I transact business from my home from time to time,” Davis explained. “This part of the house consists of my office, an assistant’s office, and a conference room. This is the conference room.” He opened a door and turned on the light.

Barrett walked into a large room and stopped in her tracks. A long conference table split the room down the middle, but she barely noticed it because lined up on all the available wall space and even in front of the windows were boxes and trunks: cardboard, wooden, and metal, of varying sizes, piled five or six high and two or three deep. There had to be at least three hundred, probably more, containers in the room. In the far corner squatted two wooden barrels as well. The scent of old paper and dust permeated her lungs. It smelled wonderful.

“Are these what I think they are?” she gasped.

“The Windswept records? Yes, they are.”

“Oh, my.” She could feel her excitement growing as she walked around the room, noting the years marked on the labels: 1833, 1897, 1943, 1880, 1859, 1920, and more. So much more. She ran her hands over an 1833 carton, then shoved them into her back pockets to keep from opening it just to have a glimpse of the contents. She didn’t have permission yet.

Oh, please, let me have them, she pleaded silently to whatever higher entity might be listening. He wouldn’t have asked you here if he wasn’t going to give you access, she reassured herself. She turned back to find him studying her again with a penetrating gaze and a give-nothing-away expression. Damn, what was the man thinking?

Davis watched her roam, saw how she reached out to touch a box here and there before putting her hands behind her. He was glad now he had told her to come immediately because she looked just fine in old worn jeans and a Rice University T-shirt. Good legs, longer than they had appeared in her suit. Nice butt. Excellent breasts, thrust forward as they were by her posture. Her unruly chocolate-brown curls still rioted--and still called for a man’s taming hands.

His grandfather had enjoyed his friendship with this woman, Davis had concluded after reading their correspondence file. Edgar showed more enthusiasm and energy in his letters to her than was evident in his family communications. Barrett was probably the reason the old man had lived longer than his doctors had predicted. “This is someone you need to know better,” he suddenly remembered Edgar telling him during those last days.

Davis intended to take his grandfather’s advice. He did not question why his plan felt so right, but it was the same feeling he had when working on the best investments he had ever made. He didn’t believe in intuition exactly, but he had learned to trust himself and the hunch.

And under any circumstances, Lloyd wouldn’t get his hands on the papers.

“Come into my office and let’s discuss my proposition,” he said. He suppressed his smile at the look on her face; if it were any indication of her feelings, he might have to drag her out of the room with wild horses. “It’s okay. The records will still be here.”

Barrett took a very deep breath. The nearness to her goal and the musty smell of old papers were making her almost lightheaded. She pulled her hands out of her pockets and clasped them in front of her. “Sorry. My fingers are itching. This is torture to be in the same room with them. And there’s so much more here than I expected. I saw only about forty or fifty boxes at the plantation.” She followed him out of the room. “Where were the rest?”

“I think you saw only the records from 1830 to about 1870. The remaining records were in three other rooms and the attic. This is the secretarial office,” he said as they passed through an outer office with a desk and computer. A photocopier/laser printer/fax resided in the corner and a table and chairs sat next to the full length windows overlooking the pool.

They walked through the door in the far wall and into his own office. “Please, take a seat.” He gestured her to a chairs-and-sofa group on the right side of the room next to the windows.

She looked around as she moved to sit on the sofa. The office was masculine in tone and furniture and, like its secretarial counterpart, also overlooked the pool. In contrast to the living room, someone definitely lived here. A couple of sports trophies, a number of family photographs, and the mixture of books and small items on the shelves lining the left wall between the offices proved it.