Heartwishes by Jude Deveraux

you can come and go as you please,” he said. “And it’s on the third floor, so you’ll have privacy.”
    “Your own private stairs? You sound like you were a very busy young man,” she said, teasing.
    He didn’t seem to see her words as a joke. “I was called out so often in the middle of the night that when I was in the tenth grade, my father had the stairs put up so I wouldn’t wake the family.”
    She didn’t understand what he meant. “You weren’t acting as sheriff when you were in high school, were you?”
    “No, but I tend to volunteer for things. And, besides, I’ve always been . . .” He hesitated.
    “As big as a bulldozer?”
    “More or less,” he said, grinning. “When I was fourteen, I used to go out with the firefighters and hold the hose.”
    “Isn’t that illegal for someone that young?”
    “Yeah, but after I slipped out a window six times and ran into a burning building three times, everyone gave up trying to make me stay home. I think they gave me the hose to hold just to anchor me in place.”
    “I guess that makes sense. So your family put you on the top floor and built a staircase just for you?”
    “That they did.”
    As they pulled into the driveway, he told her that Lanny had already carried her suitcase up and she could rest for a while. “Jean is cooking dinner tonight.”
    “Is she a friend of yours?”
    “Of our whole family. She’s a lawyer who works in Richmond and she likes to cook special meals.”
    “I look forward to meeting her.”
    Minutes later, he stopped at the bottom of a tall staircase thatwent up the entire side of the house. She could tell that he meant to escort her up, but she didn’t want him to. She liked him so much, was so very attracted to him, and she didn’t want to do anything embarrassing. Besides, it was better to keep a distance from the son of someone she hoped would employ her. “I can find my own way around,” she said.
    “I’ll just show you—”
    “No, really. I’d like some time to go over my notes.”
    “All right,” he said, but he sounded disappointed. “Come down about six. We’ll have drinks, then dinner.”
    “Sure,” she said as she started up the stairs, but he kept standing there. She realized he was waiting to see her safely up the stairs. Only when she got to the door did he turn and walk away.
    Now, as Gemma lay on the bed and looked about the room, she thought about what she’d seen and heard that day. It had been a lot. First there were the untouched documents that had made her want to murder someone just to ensure that she got the job. Then Colin had come to the guesthouse and she’d been with him ever since.
    How different his life had been from hers, she thought. He’d always lived in one place. He’d probably gone to elementary school with people who were his friends now. And then there were his many relatives.
    As for Gemma, since she’d entered the university seven years before, her life had been transient. It wasn’t so because she moved, but at the school everyone around her had come and gone. Over the years, she’d had four close women friends. Each one had declared she was going for her Ph.D., but one by one, her friends had found men, married, then dropped out. Now all four of the women had children—and their correspondence had dwindled to an e-mail every three or four months.
    As for the few men in Gemma’s life, they too had moved away.One of them had begged her to go with him. But she’d told him she was determined to stay where she was, that she had a plan for her life and wasn’t going to deviate from it. The truth was, she hadn’t been in love with him and didn’t want to go.
    From the beginning, her goals had never changed. After she was awarded her doctorate, and after she had a job at a good school, she planned to start looking about for a permanent life, which meant a husband, a home, and a family of her own.
    Married to a man like Colin, she thought. Her first impression