Windswept by Ann Macela Page A

bien.”
    After their exchange, all conversation was conducted in Spanish. By the end of the meal, Barrett and the Gonzales had reached a compromise on names. She was maestra , Gonzales was don Jesus, and his wife was doña Eva, but only when nobody else except Ricardo was around. In deference to Gonzales’s sensibilities, formality was to reign otherwise.
    Barrett and Ricardo finished the sorting late Wednesday and arranged the boxes in the conference room in the order in which she would catalog their contents. In a back corner were the two barrels and a couple of locked trunks. She’d worry about them later. After the young man left, she walked around the room a couple of times admiring their handiwork and planning her next steps.
    If she did nothing but inventory and organize box contents for the next two days, she could get a jump start on the process, establish her rhythm and make sure her methodology worked. The records began in the 1830s. If she could work her way well into the decade, she’d have some good leads for her own articles. Or, at least she hoped so. She’d follow those leads over the weekend and go back to the inventory on Monday.
    She knew two items she was particularly looking for. Edgar Preston Jamison had shown her two journals as a starting point, one, the diary of Windswept’s first Jamison master, Edgar John Jamison, and the other, a household account book kept by Mary Maude Jamison, Edgar’s wife and mistress of the plantation. Barrett’s cursory look into the boxes had not revealed either, but she knew they were there somewhere.
    She looked at her watch and then at her hands. Almost five o’clock. And her hands and arms were filthy from handling all the old papers, her jeans were streaked from ancient dust, and her T-shirt smelled like old cardboard. She felt totally grimy. Walking out into the hall, she gazed at the blue waters sparkling in the swimming pool. Just the ticket--a swim to work off Eva’s cooking, then dinner, then back to work on the first box. She headed for her bedroom and her swimsuit.
     
     

 
     
    Chapter Six
     
    A little before two on Thursday afternoon, Davis watched his house come into view through the limousine windshield. Damn, he was glad to be home from Washington. Meeting with all those Congresspeople and their staff members about the trade and overseas investment bills had been exhausting in the extreme. The talks had been partisan wrangling on one side and all the special interests jockeying for position on the other.
    He wondered how his historian was doing and shook his head at the term, “his historian.” When had he started thinking of her that way? He’d not talked to her when he called the house on Tuesday, but Gonzales had apprised him of what was going on in the office wing. He had been puzzled about Barrett’s attempt to move all those cartons by herself until he hypothesized that she must not be used to calling on others for help. She just went ahead and got the job done. Totally unlike most of the women he socialized with. Those women usually wanted to be waited on hand and foot and didn’t lift a finger if they didn’t have to.
    He still wasn’t sure how he felt about someone living in the house with him, but there was nothing he could do about it now. Not without going back on their contract. He’d never reneged on a deal in his life, so the little professor was here for the duration of the project. He’d just have to put up with it.
    Gonzales came out to take charge of the luggage while Davis paid the driver. In the foyer, the houseman said, “I put your messages and the mail on your desk as usual, sir. May I get you anything else?”
    “Thank you. No, I’m fine. Where’s Dr. Browning?” Davis asked, taking off his coat and tie and handing them to Gonzales.
    “ La maestra is in the office.”
    “How are y’all getting along?”
    “Muy bien.”
    Davis picked up his briefcase and strode toward the office. When he opened the