A Christmas to Die For (3 page)

"My grandmother was never involved in his business interests." And she wasn't going to allow him to badger her with questions. "I can't see that it matters, since your mother obviously didn't want to sell. Maybe what you need to do is talk to the attorney."

Her own tone was as sharp as his had been. She wasn't sure where the sudden tension had come from, but it was there between them. She could feel it, fierce and insistent.

Tyler's frown darkened, but before he could speak, there was a noisy creak from the living room.

"Hello? Anybody here?"

"Be right there," she called. She'd never been quite so pleased to hear Phillip Longstreet's voice. She didn't know where Tyler had been going with his questions and his attitude, and she didn't think she wanted to.

T
yler didn't miss the relief on Rachel's face at the interruption. The speed with which she went into the living room was another giveaway. She might not know what drove him, but she'd picked up on something.

Or else he'd been careless, pushing too hard in his drive to get this situation resolved.

He followed her and found her greeting the newcomer with some surprise. "Phillip. What are you doing here?"

The man raised his eyebrows as she evaded his attempt to hug her. "Aren't you going to introduce me?" He held out his hand to Tyler. "Phillip Longstreet. You may have noticed Longstreet Antiques on Main Street in the village."

He was in his late forties or early fifties at a guess, but he wore his age well—fit-looking, with fair hair that showed signs of gray at the temples and shrewd hazel eyes behind the latest style in glasses.

"This is Tyler Dunn." She glanced at him, and he thought he read a warning in her eyes.

"Nice to meet you. Were you looking for Ms. Hampton?"

"It's always pleasant to see Rachel, but no, I wanted to meet the new owner." Longstreet shrugged, smiling. "I like to get in before the other dealers when I can."

"How did you know?" Rachel sounded exasperated. "If we had a party line, Phillip, I'd suspect you of eavesdropping."

"I have to be far more creative than that to stay ahead of the competition. If you want to keep secrets, don't come to a village. Emma's son, Levi, delivered the news along with my eggs this morning."

It was an insight into how this place worked. "Are you interested in the contents of the house, Mr. Longstreet?"

A local dealer might be the best choice before putting the house on the market, but Longstreet was obviously trolling for antiques, probably hoping to get an offer in on anything of value before his competition did. Or possibly before Tyler realized what he had.

"Phil, please. I'd like to look around." Longstreet's gaze was already scoping out the few pieces left in the living room. "Sometimes there are attractive pieces in these old farmhouses, although more often it's a waste of time."

"I'm afraid your time was definitely wasted this afternoon." He gestured toward the door. "I'm not ready to make a decision about selling anything yet."

"If I could just take a look around, I might be able to give you an idea of values." Longstreet craned his neck toward the dining room.

Tyler swung the door open and stepped out onto the porch, so that the man had no choice but to follow. "I'll be in touch when I'm ready to make a decision. Thank you for stopping by."

"Yes, well, thanks for your time." Longstreet stepped gingerly over the broken step. "Rachel, I'll see you at the meeting tonight."

Rachel, coming out behind him, bent to snap a leash onto the dog's collar. "Fine."

Tyler waited until Longstreet had backed out of the driveway to turn to her. "Is that one of the reputable dealers your grandmother might recommend?"

"Grams probably
would
suggest him. His uncle was an old crony of my grandfather."

"But…?"

Her nose crinkled. "Phil's nice enough, in his way. It's just that every time he comes to the inn, I get the feeling he's putting a price on the furniture."

"I'm not bad at showing people the door, if you'd like some help."

"I run an inn, remember?" She smiled, her earlier antagonism apparently gone. "The idea is to get people in, not send them away. Are you a bouncer in your real life?"

"Architect. Showing people the way out is just a sideline."

She looked interested. "Do you work on your own?"

He shook his head. "I'm with a partner in Baltimore, primarily designing churches and public buildings. Luckily I'm between projects right now, so I can take some time off to deal with this." Which brought him back to the problem at hand. "Well, if your grandmother recommends Longstreet, I'll still be sure to get offers from more than one dealer."

"That should keep him in line. He's probably easier to cope with when he wants to buy something from you. I'm on the Christmas in Churchville committee with him, and he can be a real pain there."

He pulled the door shut and turned the key in the lock.

"Are you sure you're finished? You didn't look around upstairs."

"I've had enough for the moment." He tried to dismiss the negative feelings that had come with seeing the place again. This was a fool's errand. There was no truth left to find here—just a moldering ruin that had never, as far as he could tell, been a happy home.

The dog leaped down from the porch, nearly pulling Rachel off balance, and he caught her arm to steady her.

"Easy. Does he really need to be on the leash?"

"I wanted to discourage any more digging around the porch. I'm afraid you may have something holed up in there for the winter."

"Whatever it is, let it stay." He took the leash from her hand and helped her over the broken step to the ground. "I won't bother it."

She glanced at him as they walked away. "You must be saddened to see the place in such a state."

He shrugged. "I only saw it twice that I recall. It would have been worse for my mother than for me. She grew up here."

"Do you think—" She stopped, as if censoring what she'd been about to say.

"That's why she let it fall to pieces?" He finished the thought for her. "I have no idea. I'd have expected my dad to intercede, but—" he shrugged "—I didn't know she still owned the place until a few weeks ago, and by then she was in no shape to explain much. Maybe she just wanted to forget, after the way her father died."

Rachel scuffed through frost-tipped dead leaves that the wind had scattered over the road. "I don't think I've ever actually heard how it happened."

"From what my mother told me, he apparently confronted someone breaking into the house. There was a struggle, and he had a heart attack. He wasn't found until the next day."

She shivered, shoving her hands into her pockets. "It's hard to think about something like that happening here when I was a child. It always seemed such an idyllic place."

They walked for a few moments in silence, their footsteps muted on the macadam road. He glanced at her, confirming what he heard. "You're limping. Did you twist your ankle getting off that porch?"

"It wasn't that." She nodded toward the bend in the road ahead of them, the wind ruffling her hair across her face so that she pushed it back with an impatient movement. "I had an accident just up the road back in the spring."

He frowned down at her. "It must have been a bad one. Did you hit a tree?"

She shook her head. "I was jogging, too late in the evening, I guess. A car came around the bend—" She stopped, probably reliving it too acutely.

That explained why she'd stepped back into the trees when he'd come down the lane last night. "How badly were you hurt?"

"Two broken legs." She shrugged. "Could have been worse, I guess. It only bothers me when I'm on my feet too long."

"I hope the driver ended up in jail."

"Hit and run," she said briefly.

Obviously she didn't want to talk about it any further. He couldn't blame her. She didn't want to remember, any more than he wanted to think about the way his grandfather died, or the burden his mother had laid on him to find out why.

"I guess this place isn't so idyllic after all."

"Bad things happen anywhere, people being people."

"Yes, I guess they do." Of course she was right about that. It was only the beauty that surrounded them that made violence seem so out of place here.

Rachel was thankful when the business part of the "Christmas in Churchville" meeting was over. The strain of mediating all those clashing egos had begun to tell on her after the first hour.

Now the battling committee members wandered around the public rooms of the inn, helping themselves to punch and the variety of goodies placed on tables in both the back parlor and the breakfast room. She'd figured out a long time ago that if you wanted to keep people circulating, you should space out the food and drink.

She and Grams had put cranberry punch on the round table next to the fireplace in the back parlor, accompanied by an assortment of cheeses, grapes and crackers. The breakfast room had coffee, tea and hot chocolate on the sideboard, along with mini éclairs and pfeffernüsse, the tiny clove and cardamom delicacies that were her grandmother's special holiday recipe.

Would Tyler come down? Thinking of him alone in his room, she'd suggested he join them for refreshments. He'd know when the business meeting was over, she'd told him, when the shouting stopped.

Her committee members weren't quite that bad, but they did have strong opinions on what would draw the holiday tourists to spend their money in Churchville.

She checked on the service in the parlor and walked back toward the breakfast room. Tyler was in an odd position here—part of the community by heritage and yet a stranger. He probably wouldn't be around long enough to change that. He'd sell the property and go back to his life in Baltimore.

Hopefully he wouldn't leave problems behind in the form of whoever bought his grandfather's farm. The neighbors disliked seeing it derelict, but there were certainly things they'd hate even more.

"Rachel, there you are." Phillip intercepted her in the doorway, punch cup in hand. Fortunately the cup made it easier to escape the arm he tried to put around her. "I wanted to speak with you about the Hostetler place."

"So does everyone else, but I don't know anything. Tyler hasn't told me what his plans are for the property."

"You know I'm all about the furniture, my dear. I remember a dough box that my uncle tried to buy once from old Hostetler. If there's anything like that left—"

"You saw the living room. Most of the furniture is already gone."

"I didn't see the rest of the house." His voice turned wheedling. "Come on, Rachel, at least give me a hint what's there."

"Sorry, I didn't see anything else." She slipped past him. "Excuse me, but I have to refill the coffeepot."

Phillip was nothing if not persistent. That probably explained how he managed to make such a success of the shop. His uncle had been a sweet old man, but he'd never had much of a head for business, from what Grams said.

She snagged a mug of hot chocolate and a pfeffernüsse for herself, turning from the table to find Sandra Whitmoyer bearing down on her. As wife of Churchville's most dedicated, as well as only, physician, Sandra seemed to feel the chairmanship of the decorating subcommittee was hers by right. Luckily no one else had put up a fight for it.

"Rachel, we really must keep our eyes on the rest of the shop owners along Main Street. It would be fatal to allow anyone to put up a garish display."

"I'm sure you'll do a wonderful job of that, Sandra." She had no desire to turn herself into the decorating police. "I have my hands full already, preparing the inn and organizing the open house tour." Maybe a little flattery was in order. "You have such wonderful taste. I know everyone will be seeking your advice. And they've all agreed to go along with the committee's decisions."

"Well, I suppose." Sandra ran a manicured hand over sleek waves of blond hair. She was dressed to perfection tonight as always, this time in a pair of gray wool slacks that made her legs look a mile long, paired with a silk shirt that had probably cost the earth.

Glancing past Sandra, she spotted Tyler standing in the doorway. So he had come down. He looked perfectly composed in the crowd of strangers—self-possessed, as if he carried his confidence with him no matter where he was.

She'd seen him ruffled at moments that afternoon, though, and she'd guess he didn't often show that side to people. The derelict house had affected him more than she'd expected.

And there had been an undercurrent when he talked about his mother, something more than grief, she thought.

Sandra had moved to the window, peering out at the patio and garden. "I suppose you'll be decorating the garden for the open house."

"White lights on the trees, and possibly colored ones on the big spruce."

"It would be more effective without the security lights," Sandra said. "You could turn them off during the house tour hours. And maybe put a spotlight on the gazebo."

"I don't want to draw attention to the gazebo. I'd be happy to demolish it completely."

"You wouldn't have to do something that drastic."

She turned at the sound of Tyler's voice, smiling her welcome. "What would you suggest, other than a stick of dynamite? Sandra Whitmoyer, I'd like to introduce Tyler Dunn. He owns the Hostetler place, down the road from us."

Sandra extended her hand. "Welcome to Churchville. Everyone is curious about what you intend for the property. Well, not my husband, of course. As a busy physician, he doesn't have time for many outside interests."

Bradley Whitmoyer was as self-effacing a man as she'd ever met, but his wife had appointed herself his one-woman press agency.

Tyler responded, politely noncommittal, and turned back to Rachel. "I wouldn't recommend high explosives for the gazebo. You wouldn't like the results."

"I don't like it the way it is."

He smiled down at her. "That's because it's in the wrong place. If you moved it to the other side of the pond, it would be far enough away to create a view."