Rainy Day Sisters (7 page)

“I don't suppose it really matters. There's not too much to do, is there?” As if to prove her wrong, the phone rang and Maggie snatched it up with a cheery, “Good morning, Hartley-by-the-Sea Village Primary.” She paused for a moment, her forehead wrinkling in a frown, and then launched into a lengthy description of the current issues with the school's boiler. Lucy turned back to her computer screen.

She'd just gotten to Year Three when she stilled, her gaze trained on the middle of the year's register.
Kincaid, Poppy.

Surely not. Kincaid had to be a fairly common last name. Or maybe Alex had nieces and nephews at the school. Juliet had told her, on that beach walk, that everyone here was related one way or another, and if you weren't, then you were an offcomer, no matter how long you'd lived here.

“Are you an offcomer?” Lucy had asked, and Juliet had smiled grimly.

“I'll always be an offcomer,” she'd said.

Maggie hung up the phone with an exasperated sigh and turned back to the photocopier. “Maggie,” Lucy said, and she looked over her shoulder.

“Yes, love?”

That was something that would take some getting used to: near strangers calling her love. Although, actually, Lucy kind of liked it. “Does Mr. Kincaid have relatives at the school?”

“Relatives?” Maggie let out one of her booming laughs. “You could say that. His daughter Poppy is in Year Three. Sweet little thing, poor soul.”

Lucy swiveled in her chair. “Poor soul?”

Maggie's expression tightened briefly and she flashed Alex's closed door a wary glance. “No mum. Alex's wife died nearly two years ago now, only a few months after they'd come up from Manchester.”

He was a
widower
? Lucy stared at Maggie, unable to form a response. She'd assumed Alex Kincaid was one of those aggressively single men who was your common commitment-phobic workaholic. He hadn't seemed married, and as for being a father . . .

She supposed it shouldn't change how she viewed him, but it did. She couldn't keep sympathy from swelling inside her at the thought of him coping alone with a daughter. Although maybe he had a girlfriend, one of those glossy, coolly competent women who also managed to be kind and lovable with a little girl.

She turned back to the register, her fingers hovering above the keyboard as she squinted at the screen and tried to figure out how to get to the next box on the table. The return button? Tab? She pushed both and watched as a box disappeared and another enlarged, just as Alex Kincaid came into the office.

He frowned at her computer screen and she gave him her sunniest smile. “So, as you might have guessed, my word processing skills are a little underdeveloped.”

“That's a spreadsheet application, not a word processing program,” he answered, and she wondered if his wife had minded his anal-retentive behavior.
Widower,
a little voice whispered inside her.
Widower and single dad.

“I think I just proved my point. Now if you wanted me to design a brochure for the school, I could do that, no problem.”

Alex's frown deepened. “We're a state school. We don't need brochures.” He pronounced it
bro-shurs
, putting equal emphasis on both syllables.

“Just a thought,” Lucy murmured, and he brandished a piece of paper at her.

“I have a draft of an e-mail here. It's to the board of governors. There's a meeting next week, and I need them all to receive the agenda. Could you forward this to the board? The addresses should be in the contacts folder on the e-mail server.”

“I probably can manage that,” Lucy answered. E-mail she could do.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice terse, and he turned to head back to his office.

“A bunch of us are going to the pub tonight,” Lucy called after him. The words popped out of her mouth before she could think better of them, or consider her motive. “Just for a drink after work. Why don't you join us?”

Slowly he turned around. He looked, Lucy thought, rather dumbfounded by her invitation. “Thank you, but I don't think that's a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“People like to relax at those kinds of social occasions,” he answered stiffly. “If I was there, they wouldn't be able to.”

“Because you're the boss or because—” She stopped suddenly, biting her lip. Behind her Maggie had stopped shuffling papers and was clearly listening to this exchange with avid interest.

“Because?” Alex prompted, his frown fast becoming a scowl.

“You're a bit . . . stern,” Lucy allowed, and Maggie suppressed something that sounded like a cross between a cough and a laugh. Alex stared at her for a long moment and Lucy wondered if she was about to get fired.

“Only a bit?” he finally said, and to her amazement his mouth quirked upwards in the tiniest of smiles. Lucy stared at him in shock, and then grinned back. Alex Kincaid had actually made a joke.

“Enjoy your night out,” he said quietly, his expression back to its usual stony stare, and he returned to his office, closing the door behind him.

Shaking her head again, Lucy turned back to the computer and from behind her she heard Maggie rustle papers.

“Now, that was interesting,” Maggie said, and Lucy decided not to ask what she meant.

An exhausting but fairly productive day's work later, Lucy was closing down the office, the children having all spilled out of the school an hour ago, and was ready to head to the pub with a few of the teachers. Maggie had taken off after lunch, claiming Lucy could handle everything that came her way, although Lucy wasn't convinced of that. She'd managed to disconnect three calls—two of them meant to go through to Alex—and logging the afternoon register—something she didn't see the point of—had taken the better part of an hour.

At half past two Alex had come out of his office to inform her he would take his own calls. Meekly, Lucy had agreed. Transferring calls was not turning out to be one of her skills.

Now Diana, the red-haired Year Five teacher, waited for her by the door. “So, how are you finding Cumbria?” she asked as they left the school together.

Lucy thought of the endless rain and wind, her sister's glare and ensuing silence. “I like it so far. I think.”

“So what made you come all this way, then?” Diana asked as she buttoned up her coat. The wind blowing off the sea felt like it was straight from Iceland, which, considering their location, it probably was. “I know you have a sister here, Juliet, but it's an awful long way from America.”

“I was at a loose end, and I thought I'd like a change.” Diana nodded, and thankfully didn't press. Lucy imagined telling her, or anyone, the full, unvarnished truth. “What about you?” she asked. “You don't sound like a local, either.”

“Not precisely. I'm from Carlisle.”

“And your husband works in Manchester?”

Diana grimaced. “Yes.”

“He couldn't get a job up here?”

“He didn't really try. I came up here last year to be closer to my mum, who's still in Carlisle. My dad died a year ago, and it's been hard on her. Andrew came up planning to get a job locally. He's in real estate—there are plenty of job opportunities.”

“But?” Lucy prompted when Diana lapsed into silence.

“He didn't like it here. I don't blame him, not really. He's a city boy, and West Cumbria is about as remote as you can get, unless you move to the Outer Hebrides.”

“I don't even know where those are,” Lucy answered. She felt sorry for Diana; it had to be hard to be separated from your husband for five days out of seven.

“Well, anyway,” Diana dismissed with a smile and a shrug. “At least we're both working. And this too shall pass, eh?”

Lucy thought of her mother's scathing editorial, the endless blogs and articles that had covered the whole debacle. “Eventually.”

“And now I could really use a drink.”

A bunch of the other teachers were waiting at the bottom of the school yard, and they all headed down to the Hangman's Noose. Despite the rather dour name, the pub was cheerful and cozy, with a couple of worn sofas and squashy armchairs set around a blazing log fire.

Lucy sat on the end of one of the sofas with a glass of wine and let the teachers' chatter wash over her. They all knew each other well, and were catching up on their summers and school gossip, so while Lucy didn't feel unwelcome, neither did she feel precisely a part of things.

Her mind drifted to Alex Kincaid. He ought to smile more, she thought, especially at the children. She'd watched him give out the Head Teacher Awards at assembly that afternoon, and he had looked so stern. But he'd been kind too, saying something specific about each child—although perhaps he'd been prepped by their teachers.

She wondered how his wife had died, and whether he missed her very much. What was his daughter Poppy like? Lucy had seen the Year Threes file into the hall at lunchtime, but she hadn't been able to identify Alex's daughter among them.

“So what do you think of our head teacher?” Diana asked, and it took Lucy a second to realize she was addressing her. Diana was looking a lot more relaxed; she'd kicked off her shoes and was leaning back against the sofa, sipping a large glass of wine.

“Umm . . . he seems fine,” Lucy said cautiously. She didn't mind a good gossip, but she was pretty sure that saying anything indiscreet in Hartley-by-the-Sea was akin to taking out an ad in a national newspaper. And she'd had enough press coverage to last her a lifetime.

“Fine?
Fine?
” Tara, a just-out-of-college teaching assistant with the Year Twos, giggled into her near-empty glass. “I'll say he's fine.”

Liz Benson, the long-married Year Six teacher, slapped her on the thigh. “Be good, Tara.”

“Well, he is quite good-looking,” Lucy admitted, her tone still cautious. Surely stating the obvious couldn't get her into trouble.

“Ooh,”
Tara cooed, in the manner of one of her pupils, and Lucy flushed. Okay, maybe it could.

“Maggie told me he's a widower,” Lucy continued.

Liz nodded seriously. “His wife, Anna, died two years ago now. Horse-riding accident. She fell and broke her neck, died instantly.”

“They'd only just moved here a few months before,” Diana contributed. “She was friends with Juliet, Anna was. Kept her horse behind Tarn House.”

“Did she?” Was that why Alex had hired her, because Juliet had been friends with his wife? It was strange, thinking of Juliet with a friend, a friend she'd lost. It made her realize all over again how little she knew about any of them.

“I don't know if you'd call them
friends
,” Tara protested. She giggled into her glass again, a girlish gesture Lucy decided was annoying. “Does Juliet even have any friends?”

Liz made a shushing sound and Diana reached over to pluck Tara's wineglass from her hands.

“Right, that's you finished,” she said briskly, and Lucy forced a smile. It didn't really surprise her that Juliet didn't have any friends. She'd guessed as much already, but now she felt a twinge of sorrow anyway. Juliet had been living here for ten years.

The conversation moved on to summer holidays, and after a decent interval Lucy put her unfinished wine on the table and made to leave.

“Thanks, everyone,” she said, and half a dozen heads turned towards her, eyebrows raised, a few of the smiles a little guilty. “It's been fun.”

She reached for her coat just as Liz reached for her hand, causing them to have an awkward little tussle. “Don't take what Tara says to heart,” Liz said in a low voice. “She's a bit of a radgee.”

Lucy stared at her blankly. “A . . . what?”

Liz smiled. “A radgee. Cumbrian for . . . I don't know, a silly person.” She glanced at Tara, who was leaning forward, eyes bright as she gossiped with the Year One teacher. “Although maybe that's a bit hard on the lass. She hasn't had an easy time of it.”

“Tara hasn't?”

“She got in with a wild crowd in secondary,” Liz explained, her voice low. “Ended up pregnant and alone at seventeen. Her mother wouldn't have naught to do with her, or the baby, which was a terrible shame. So she got into council housing on her own, and saw herself through an NVQ Level One.”

“That's impressive,” Lucy said, although she had no idea what an NVQ was. “What happened to the baby?”

Liz grinned unexpectedly. “She's in Reception. Emma Handley.” She glanced back at Tara. “She doesn't get out much, poor lass. She's just trying to enjoy herself.”

Everyone had a story, it seemed, and not necessarily a happy one. “I don't mind what she said,” Lucy told Liz. “Trust me, I know Juliet can be a little . . . prickly.” She immediately felt guilty for admitting that much, but Liz nodded in understanding.

“Juliet's areet,” she said firmly, and it took Lucy a second to realize Liz meant
all right
, and that this seemed to be a compliment indeed. With a smile of thanks for Liz and another wave to the group at large, she headed out into the wet and windy night.

When she got back to Tarn House, she was feeling tired and also very slightly buzzed; Juliet had made a chicken pie and left it in the Aga's warming oven. Several walkers were in the sitting room in their thermal socks with glasses of sherry; not wanting to get drawn into a lengthy conversation about walking gear, Lucy stayed in the kitchen.

Juliet appeared a few minutes later, pausing for a moment in the doorway. Lucy didn't think she was imagining the tension that twanged between them, and she took a bite of pie to avoid it. There was a reason she'd run all the way to England after her life had blown up. Confrontation was so not her thing.

But considering what she'd learned in the pub, and what Juliet had told her about Fiona . . . Lucy swallowed and smiled.