Golden Lies - Barbara Freethy [118]
Maybe Riley was right. Maybe they were too different to belong together. Her head told her he might have a point. Her heart told her the differences didn't matter. And weren't those differences in the past? They were together in this. She might be hesitating, but if she were really honest with herself, she'd have to admit that he hadn't dragged her into it. She wanted to find the answers as much as he did. She was just letting him be the one to do it.
Wasn't that cowardly? As if not helping in the search made her actual participation seem less. But it wasn't less. They were a team, a partnership. And she'd come into this room with her eyes open. She couldn't pretend Riley was making her do it. He wasn't.
She turned and deliberately opened the door to her grandfather's walk-in closet. It was lined with suits on one side, shirts and pants on another, everything from formal to casual wear, dozens of shoes on racks, ties, hats, sweaters. It was the closet of a very rich man. She looked to the shelves that ran around the top of the closet. Her gaze caught on a square plastic container in which there appeared to be several books. She looked around for a step stool but couldn't find one.
"Anything in here?" Riley asked, moving into the closet.
"I don't know yet. But that plastic container looks interesting."
Riley reached up and pulled it off the shelf, setting it on the ground between them. She squatted down, putting her hand on the lid, but she stopped when Riley covered her hand with his. She met his eyes. "What?"
"You don't have to do this. At least, you don't have to do this with me here."
"Why wouldn't I?"
"If I find anything to incriminate your grandfather, I'll use it," he said with his usual brutal honesty.
She drew in a tight, worried breath. Maybe she should be doing this alone. But she didn't want to do it alone. She wanted to do it with him. Gazing into his passionate blue eyes, she knew she could no more send him out of the room than she could send herself. They'd already crossed that line, and there was no turning back.
"We're in this together," she murmured. "And if I find anything incriminating against your grandfather, I'll use it, too."
"Then we know where we stand."
"Not really. But let's at least open this box and find out if it's anything at all."
She pulled off the lid and realized the box was indeed something. There were three photo albums inside and a manila envelope. She grabbed one album. Riley took another. Her album showed her grandfather's childhood, black-and-white photographs of her grandfather and his parents. She flipped through it, wishing she had more time to really think about where her grandfather had come from, what kind of life he had lived as a young man.
"What did you get?" she asked Riley.
"Your grandparents' wedding pictures. Your grandmother was a beautiful woman. Looks a little like you in the eyes."
"Yes," she murmured, gazing at the page he had turned. "I wish I could have met her. Anything else?"
"Doesn't look like it."
Paige reached for the third album, wondering where this book would take them. The first page of photographs sent goose bumps down her arm. "Hathaway's," she muttered. "Look, this is the store way back when."
"In the 1920s?" Riley guessed, coming around so he could sit next to her on the floor.
"It looks that way. My great-great-grandfather started the store in the late 1800s. The Hathaways were part of the gold rush, only we weren't digging for gold; we were outfitting the miners and selling dry goods."
"When did the focus turn to antiques and art?"
"After World War Two when my grandfather took over," she said, wondering if there was any significance to that. "I remember him saying that his own father never had much