Free Jude Deveraux by First Impressions Page A

what I did, all I can do is try to make amends. I
can't leave you in this dirty house to take care of yourself. I can't afford to
hire a nurse to look after you, and I don't have the time to run back and forth
to clean up your kitchen and keep fires going. This afternoon FedEx brought me
a box of six manuscripts that have to be copy-edited or critiqued within the
next few weeks. Have you ever copy-edited a manuscript, Mr. McBride?'
    'I
can't say that I have.' He was watching her with amusement. She had put on an
act of sternness, like a lady schoolmarm, but what she was saying was softness
itself.
    'They
take a lot of time, so I need to have the time to give them. I really can't see
any other way except that you move into my guest bedroom and let me take care
of you there.'
    'And
what about the lawyer?'
    'Braddon
Granville? Yes, he's my attorney,' she said, puzzled, and the way she said it
told Jared everything he needed to know. Maybe the lawyer and maybe the whole
town thought that the Granville-Palmer wedding was a done deal, but it didn't
seem that cute little Ms. Palmer thought so.

4
    Eden
put down her cup of tea and glanced upward, as though she could see through the
ceiling to what Mr. McBride was up to.
    Why is
it that men think all women are stupid? she wondered for the hundred thousandth
time in her life. It seemed that a woman had to prove herself to every man she
met before he believed that she had any brains. And after she'd shown him her
intelligence, he still spent the rest of their time together seeing what he
could get away with.
    She'd
been in Arundel just two days, but already she had two eligible, middle-aged
bachelors who were coming on to her. She figured she had a choice. She could
believe that, in their eyes, she was the sexiest thing since Marilyn Monroe, or
she could believe that both of them were up to something.
    Eden
nibbled on a cookie that she'd just taken out of the oven. She had left Arundel
by the time the old washhouse had been repaired, but Mrs. Farrington had often
talked about her plans for renovating it. She was going to rent it to someone
for a little money in return for working in the garden on summer evenings and
weekends. Eden knew Mrs. Farrington well, and there was no way she'd connect
the electricity between the washhouse and the main house. She'd insist on
separate bills. Eden could almost hear the old woman now: 'If they left all the
lights on day and night, would I be required to pay for them? Absolutely
not!' But now she had been told that the electricity of the two houses had been
joined.
    Today,
Eden had had to spend most of the day in the hospital, and she felt sure it was
on Brad's orders. She kept asking the hospital staff if she could go home, but
every nurse and doctor had been evasive. Finally, at two o'clock, they'd said
she could leave. Eden wondered if Brad had finally given permission for her
dismissal.
    The
smiling, smirking deputy sheriff, Clint, was waiting for her, and Eden was glad
for her sore muscles so she could use them to explain her angry red face. She'd
had to sit in the police car on the ride back to Farrington Manor in silence as
Clint made what he thought was one joke after another. According to him, Eden
had lived too long in the North and didn't understand how neighbors in the
South looked out for one another. They took care of one another. Lent helping
hands, that sort of thing. Clint chuckled and smirked through the entire ride.
When they got to the house, he asked her if she wanted him to get out his gun
and go through the house to check it for her. Eden was about to tell him what
he could do with his gun, when his radio came on. He gave her a look that said
he had important work to do now, so she got out of the car, somehow managing
not to slam the door.
    Inside,
Eden got her first real look at the magnificent old central hall. When she'd
first laid eyes on it years ago, it had been a mass of furniture and papers;
eventually the papers had been