The Beautiful Daughters by Nicole Baart Page A

knew that the mansion was exactly why she had led Harper through the pasture in the first place. If Harper wanted a fairy tale, she’d find it in the arched Palladian windows of the Galloways’ Italian-style villa.
    The corniced roofline stamped an orderly edge against a strip of blue sky, and even from such a distance, they could just make out the ornate corbels that propped up the projecting eaves. Adri had visited the mansion once a year for as long as she could remember, and her memory filled out the silhouette of the sweeping veranda, the high windows, the artful stonework that transported her to another era, another world.
    â€œWhat is that place?” Harper asked, wonder in her voice.
    â€œPiperhall.” Adri grinned. “That is your fantasy. Your happily-ever-after ending.”
    â€œIs there a prince?” Harper’s lip curled up hawkishly. “Because I think we should seduce him and split the spoils.”
    â€œBe my guest.” Adri stripped a stalk of volunteer oats and began to husk the grain in her palm. “He goes to ATU.”
    â€œShut up. There really is a prince? And he graces our humble little halls of higher learning?”
    â€œHow do you think a small town like Blackhawk supports a college like ATU? The Galloways practically own the university. David’s daddy probably bought him a diploma and the A’s to go with it.”
    â€œDavid Galloway?” Harper’s mind was spinning. Adri could practically see the whirl of her daydreams. “Tall and blond? Kind of hunky? I think he’s in my Western Civ class.”
    â€œI don’t know that I’d call him hunky,” Adri snorted. “But he’s not blond. More like pale brunet.”
    Harper threw back her head and laughed. “Pale brunet? What does that even mean? Spill. What do you know about this guy?”
    It wasn’t like Harper to care, but Adri could tell that she was genuinely interested. Maybe even more than interested. Harper had closed the space between them and was mere inches from Adri’s face, searching as if she could find answers hidden in every nuance of expression. “I don’t know.” Adri shrugged, taking a step back. As much as she adored Harper, she didn’t much care for her habit of close talking. “It’s mostly gossip and hearsay.”
    â€œOoh! I love gossip.”
    Adri couldn’t help but smile. Harper was an amazing gossip—to the point that Adri suspected her friend of making up rumors when there were none to spread around.
    â€œFine,” Adri sighed, giving in. But even as she feigned reluctance, she was eager to invite Harper into the mystery of her youth. The riddle that was the Galloway family. But she didn’t know where to start. “What do you want to know?”
    â€œEverything.”
    After a moment Adri said, “The Galloways are old money. Liam—that’s David’s dad—was the descendant of a lumber baron who made his fortune in Michigan and decided to settle as far away from his family as he could, or so the story goes.”
    â€œWas?”
    â€œHe died a few months ago.” Adri raised a shoulder almost imperceptibly. “I saw him once a year, at the Piperhall summer picnic, but we never spoke. He was tall, gray-haired . . . kind of scary.”
    â€œYou find all men scary,” Harper teased.
    Adri didn’t justify the comment with a response. “The Galloways are new money, too. Biodiesel.”
    â€œI don’t think that’s a thing.” Harper raised an eyebrow. “Old money and new money? It’s all just money, Adri. Besides, I don’t really care about where they got it. I want the juicy stuff: who they sleep with, what skeletons they have buried in the woods, why in the world their estate is called Piperhall.”
    â€œIt’s the stuff legends are made of,” Adri said with a sly look. She started walking, and