The Carriage House (12 page)

 

Tess led her father and Davey around back to the bulkhead, telling herself if they found the skeleton, there'd be hell to pay, but at least she would know it was real and she would have to deal with it.

“Davey, you've been crawling around in people's basements for forty years.” She pushed open the six-foot door at the bottom of the bulkhead and let them go past her. Both men had to duck. “What's the strangest thing you've found?”

“I make it a policy not to look. I focus on the pipes.” He made a beeline through the finished laundry room and stood in the dirt cellar's open doorway. “Ah, hell. I hate dirt cellars.”

“It's a nineteenth-century carriage house,” Tess said, “so it shouldn't be a surprise.”

He scowled at her. “It's not.”

“You know,” her father said, “you give a cat a dirt cellar, you've got a hell of a big catbox.”

“Gee, Pop, I'm so glad you came up here. What took you so long? I mean, I've been here, what, twenty-four hours?”

He ignored her, and she walked across the cool concrete floor and stood next to Davey. With the late-afternoon light angling through her repaired window, the cellar seemed almost ordinary. “People ever bury things in their dirt cellars?”

“You mean like pets? They'd stink.”

She felt her stomach fold in on itself, but tried not to react visibly. Decaying corpses weren't one of her areas of expertise and not something she wanted to think about. Still, it was a point to consider. If the skeleton had been buried as an intact corpse, and not just bones, surely it couldn't have been recent, or it would have called attention to itself during the natural process of decomposition.

Her father was scrutinizing her. “Tess?”

“My mind's wandering. Sorry. There's a light under the trapdoor. But don't feel as if you have to go in there. I mean, you can see the pipes from here, can't you?”

Davey grinned at her. “What, it gives you the creeps?” He made a phony, B-movie ghost sound and laughed, amused with himself. “Relax. I've seen worse than this. Let me take a look.”

Tess lingered in the doorway while he and her father went into the older part of the cellar, their attention clearly on the pipes and heating ducts, not on what was underfoot. She bit down on her lower lip, waiting, feeling only a slight twinge of guilt that she hadn't warned them what could be in store. If there was no skeleton, there was no skeleton. Simple.

“Actually,” Davey said, “these pipes aren't bad. Cellar's dry, too, which is a good sign.”

Her throat was suddenly so constricted she couldn't answer. She kept feeling herself falling last night, spotting the skull in the dirt, letting out that blood-curdling scream.

Finally, she couldn't stand it anymore, muttered something about getting some air and fled up the bulkhead steps.

She ran headlong into the rock-solid body of Andrew Thorne. He caught her around the middle and held firm. “Easy, there, where are you going?”

Tess choked back a yell, tried to control a wild impulse to break free and run out to the ocean, charge into the waves. She felt as if she were covered in cobwebs, unable to breathe. But she made herself stand still, realized she had a death grip on his upper arms. She eased off. “I couldn't breathe down there. It must be the dust. Allergies.” She coughed, suddenly very aware of the feel of his hands on her waist. “I'm okay now.”

She could hear her father and Davey in the laundry-room door and backed up a step, releasing her grip on Andrew. He lowered his arms and rolled back on his heels, his eyes half-closed. She met his suspicious gaze straight-on, but had the uncomfortable feeling he could see right into her brain and pull out the image stored there of the yellowed skull lying in the silty dirt of her cellar.

“I came by to remind you to bring a key to the carriage house.” His voice was quiet, dead calm, his eyes still half-closed, still appraising her. “We'll need to look after the kittens while you're in Boston.”

“Yes. Of course.” Not that he couldn't get in, easily, without a key.

“You sure you're okay?”

“I think so.” She sniffled, wrinkling up her nose to prove it was the dust. “I must be allergic to something down there.”

Andrew said nothing, but his expression was serious, even humorless. He knew she was hiding something. She could feel it. And here she'd just presented him with another lie he could chalk up against her. But what did she really know about
him?
If there was a dead body in the cellar, wasn't it possible he knew about it? Or Harl did? She
had
to be careful.

Davey and her father lumbered up out of the cellar, and Tess could feel the blood rush to her face when they saw Andrew back in her yard. They'd jump to conclusions. They always did.

But Andrew retreated quickly, though not quite rudely.

Tess turned to her father. Obviously he and Davey hadn't stumbled onto any skeleton. If they had, they'd have said something by now. She took this as a positive development. “Pop, why don't I get you and Davey something cold to drink?”

She brought out cold sodas, and they walked out to the main road and across to the water, down to the wet, packed sand. It was low tide, the surf gentle, quiet in the late-day sun. Tess regarded the two men at her side with affection. They were the most prominent men in her life, constant, uncompromisingly honest. Her father was a longtime widower, Davey twice married, two old friends who worked hard and asked so little of her. She knew her father just wanted grandchildren and Little League games, and that Davey, who had grown kids of his own, would get in the dirt with them, show them how to hold the bat, the way he had shown Tess as a kid.

The problem was, she didn't have a man in her life. The men she met either didn't understand her father and Davey and the rest of the guys at Jim's Place, or they understood them too well. She didn't mind saying she wanted a relationship, but she wasn't going to settle for the wrong man just to have one. She knew she could be happy on her own. That had never been a question.

As for children—that was something else altogether. She was so young when her mother died, and there'd never been another maternal figure in her life. She didn't have a natural trust of her maternal instincts, didn't even know if she had any.

“You should have told me about this place,” her father said. Davey had gone up ahead, his hands shoved in his pockets as he walked within inches of the water.

Tess nodded. “I know.” She glanced over at him, this man who'd been by her side for so long. “You won't think I'm giving up on men if I decide to keep it?”

She was quoting his own words back to him, one of his most stubborn, most old-fashioned convictions that if a woman bought property, it meant she was giving up on having a man in her life. It was one thing to buy a house if she were widowed or divorced—but single? Never married? It was tossing in the towel, he'd told her at least a hundred times.

“Giving up? Nah. Not after meeting that Thorne guy.”

Tess groaned. “Pop, if I decide to keep the carriage house, it won't be because of who lives next door.”

He sighed, watching two gulls careen toward the shallow water before he replied. “Listen to me, Tess. You don't want to end up like me, all alone, or like Davey, with a couple of ex-wives hounding him for money all the time. Getting a place of your own—yeah, it's like saying you give up, you don't care if you find someone.” He added frankly, “Men can sense that, you know.”

“They cannot.”

“Mark my words.” He grabbed up a clamshell and flung it into the surf. “It's that last little prick you went out with. He threw you off.”

“He didn't throw me off. He was a jerk. He'd check the stock market when we had lunch. No more investment bankers for me.”

She smiled, well aware she wouldn't change how her father thought about relationships, or about her. But there was more to his concern than an old-fashioned outlook on women and marriage, only they'd always avoided going that deep. It was too painful, not just for her, but for him, too. She was terrified of motherhood, terrified of dying too soon, leaving behind children who loved and needed her. Not because they couldn't go on, but because they did.

She pushed away the thought, as she always did.

Davey swung back to them, obviously sensing what she and her father had been talking about. “One day, Tess, you won't have to worry about your old man getting in your business. The two of us'll be on our walkers in the home.”

“Davey Ahearn in a home?” Tess laughed. “You tell me one home in metropolitan Boston that would have you. No way. You're not moving from the neighborhood until you go to the great big plunger in the sky.”

As she turned to head back, she saw Andrew out on the beach with his daughter. They were throwing a Frisbee, and Tess could hear Dolly's squeals of laughter above the surf and gulls, the hum of the wind. She imagined them thirty years from now, Dolly as a grown woman out on the beach with her father, who was still alone, who'd sacrificed so much for his daughter.

D
inner was on the back porch. Hamburgers off the grill, salad, watermelon and chocolate chip cookies from a local bakery. Tess drove over, having decided she'd head straight back to Boston after dinner. A night in familiar surroundings would clear her head. She felt less of a sense of urgency now that her father and Davey hadn't found anything in the cellar, more convinced she really had conjured up a skull last night. Or a ghost.

Harl didn't stay for dinner, instead taking his plate back to his shop, muttering that he had work to do. Dolly tugged on Tess's hand and whispered, “Harl
always
has work to do.”

Tess laughed, knowing the feeling. “That's good, isn't it? You wouldn't want him to be bored.”

“Chew-bee thinks he's a
bank robber.
”

“Who?”

Andrew set a plate of grilled hamburgers on the table. Function beat out charm on the back porch, but the setting on the warm May evening, the scent of lilac, grass and sea, was all the atmosphere Tess needed. He said, “Chew-bee is one of Dolly's pretend friends. She sometimes says things Dolly knows she shouldn't say.”

“Harl used to be a policeman,” Dolly explained to her company. “I
told
Chew-bee, but she doesn't listen.”

Tess understood pretend friends. As father and daughter argued back and forth, she noted that Andrew never made Dolly say that Chew-bee wasn't real. He never imposed his own concrete way of thinking on her, which was one reason, Tess thought, Dolly exercised her creative imagination so freely, something first-grade teachers wouldn't necessarily appreciate. Tess liked the open way the two talked to each other. She'd never gotten along well with controlling, dictatorial men. Being opinionated was something else altogether. She knew the difference between a man with strong opinions and one who wanted to control everyone in his life.

But she didn't just notice Andrew's manner with his daughter, she also noticed how he moved, the way his eyes changed with the light, the play of muscles in his arms, every tiny scar. Part of her wanted to blame lack of sleep and the strangeness of her first weekend in Beacon-by-the-Sea for making her hyperaware of her surroundings. But another part of her knew it was more than that, wanted it to be.

They talked about renovations, winter storms, what shrubs and trees tended to do best this close to the ocean, window boxes and snakes. It was a free-ranging conversation, peppered by commentary from Dolly, who, when she was finished after dinner, insisted on dragging Tess off to see her tree house.

“It's all right,” Andrew said. “I'll clean up.”

It was dusk when they crossed the lawn, Dolly scooting up the rungs on the oak tree, Tess going at a more cautious pace. The tree house was made of scrap lumber, with the kind of precise construction that indicated either—or both—an architect and a furniture restorer had been involved. The ceiling height was perfect for Dolly. Tess had to duck.

Dolly showed her a Winnie-the-Pooh tea set, her cache of animal books and stuffed animals and a handheld video game that she'd left out in the rain. She also had a bright red firefighter's hat.

“This is an excellent tree house,” Tess said.

She shrugged, sighing. “It needs windows.”

Tess couldn't hold back a laugh. The critic. “Are you going to be an architect like your father?”

“Nope. I'm a princess.”

“But princesses have to have something to do.”

“Oh, I'm going to be a princess astronaut.”

With that, it was back down out of the tree house and off across the lawn to show Tess her bedroom. They passed Andrew in the kitchen. “She's exhausting,” he warned.

“I'm having fun,” Tess said, and realized happily that she was.

Dolly skipped through a gleaming wood-floored hall and up a beautiful, carved dark wood staircase. The house was simply decorated, the den obviously recently renovated, a room across the hall, which was covered in drop cloths, clearly still in the works. Dolly's room was at the top of the stairs, and she immediately pulled down all her various crowns. Then it was her multitude of dolls and stuffed animals, and finally up onto her bed to point to a picture. “That's my mom.”

Tess looked at the smiling woman in the picture, taken on a rock by the ocean. Dolly had her coppery hair, maybe the shape of her eyes. “She looks like quite a mom,” Tess said.

“I dreamed about her last night.”

“Did you?”

The girl nodded. “Yep,” she said, matter-of-fact, and jumped down off the bed. “Do you have a daughter?”

“No, I don't have any children, but I'm not married.”

“Are you going to live in the carriage house?”

“Eventually, maybe. It needs a lot of work. Right now, I live in a small apartment in Boston.”

“Can I come see it?”

“Oh, I don't know. Sometime, maybe,” Tess stammered, at a loss. She didn't want to give the girl false encouragement, nor insult her. This was what unnerved her about kids—she never knew what they were going to say, always had to be on her toes. But it was nice, too, stimulating in an odd way. And the
idea
of a six-year-old intimidated her more than the reality, at least in the form of Dolly Thorne. She quickly diverted the conversation. “I can walk to work. I like that a lot.”

“I walk to school.”

Dolly chatted on, zigzagging from subject to subject according to a logic all her own, until something drew her to the window. She covered her mouth and gasped dramatically, her entire body getting into the spirit. “Harl's making my window!”

She was off, and when Tess turned from the window herself, she saw that Andrew was leaning in the doorway. She felt an unexpected rush of heat. Dolly bulldozed right past him.

“Have you been there long?” Tess asked, suddenly self-conscious.

“Long enough to know she was about to talk your ear off.”

“I held my own. Seeing Dolly makes me realize just how young I was when my mother died. She had leukemia.” Tess gathered up several stuffed animals Dolly had dumped on the floor and set them back on the bed. “Anyway, that's neither here nor there. It's got nothing to do with you and your daughter.”

He walked into the room, glanced out the window as he spoke. It was dark now, but he didn't seem concerned about Harl and Dolly working on a window for her tree house. “Joanna died doing something she loved to do. I don't know if I could have watched her waste away.”

“Sudden death isn't easy.”

“There's no easy way to die young. I hope Dolly will make some sense out of it when she's older.”

“She's making sense of it now,” Tess said, then gave him a quick smile. “Chew-bee probably helps.”

He laughed. “If Chew-bee weren't thin air, I'd send her to her room.”

Tess picked up a rag doll and put her back on the shelf. “Very clever. I think I'll make up a pretend friend. She can write letters to deadbeat clients demanding they pay up, and she can say all the things I'd get into trouble for saying.”

“Be careful what you wish for.”

“Yes. I wished for a cottage by the ocean, and look what I got.”

He remained in the doorway, watching her as she moved around the small, girlish room. “Ike can be very persuasive.”

“You're not kidding. I drove past the carriage house a couple of times, but basically I took it sight unseen. I never even stepped foot in it.”

He smiled. “Is that an example of creative risk-taking?”

“It's probably just nuts.”

She stopped in the middle of the room, unable to think of any more busywork to do. She'd have to walk past him in the doorway. “You and Ike weren't friends?”

“No.”

“He grew up in Beacon—”

“And I'm from a rough section of Gloucester. Two different worlds.”

She found herself wanting to know more about his life, what made this man so self-contained. “Harl's from Gloucester as well?”

“Down the street from my folks. They're hardworking people, not real complicated. The world got complicated on them, neighborhood went to hell. They did their best.”

“Do they still live in Gloucester?”

“Yep. In a better neighborhood.”

“And Harl—he was a policeman?”

“Detective.” Andrew drew away from the door frame, straightening, suddenly seeming even taller. “One day, between police work and Vietnam, he'd seen enough. He walked out, grew his hair, grew a beard, turned a hobby into a business. After Joanna died and I moved in here, he fixed up the shed out back.”

“If he's your cousin, does that mean you don't have any brothers and sisters?”

He smiled almost imperceptibly. “Not a chance. Three brothers, one sister, all in Gloucester. Bunch of nieces and nephews.”

“And are they all pure granite like you?”

“Worse.”

She laughed, but saw he was watching her, attuned to even her smallest reaction. It was unsettling, a kind of single-minded attention she'd never experienced turned on her. She focused on one of Dolly's crowns, a fixed spot, to keep her balance.

“Come on,” he said quietly. “Let's take some cookies and milk out to Dolly and Harl, see if they're ready to come in out of the dark.”

But he stayed in the doorway, and when she started past him, he caught her gently around the waist, as if he'd been waiting just for this moment. Without thinking, she placed a hand on his chest, saw a flash of heat in his eyes. She felt her mouth go dry, a sudden urge to stay right where she was all night, in this half embrace overpowering her senses, unable to think of skulls in the dirt, of Ike or lies.

“You okay?” Andrew asked softly.

“Just fine.”

His mouth found hers, the kiss so natural, so perfect, it seemed to have been destined. She shut her eyes, savored the play of his lips on hers, the taste of them. Both his arms went around her, drawing her closer, until she was against him, sighing at the feel of his hard, lean body. Her lips parted, and his hands tensed on her sides as he reacted, their kiss deepening. Liquid heat spilled through her, fired every fiber of her.

She ran her hands down his sides, held him as he half lifted her onto him, wanting to melt into him, become one with him, her body burning for that release. He cupped her hips, drawing her hard against his arousal.

The feel of him, the heat of him, brought a gasp of awareness, reality. She opened her eyes, and he lowered her, pushed her gently back against the door frame. His eyes were as dark as midnight, telling her that she shouldn't mistake his stoic nature for control. He was on the precipice, sweeping his gaze over her, taking in just how aroused she was.

He skimmed his fingertips over her breasts, ignoring her quick breath, and touched her mouth. His was set in a hard line, as if he'd done something he regretted, knew was wrong. “You're a dangerous woman to have next door.”

“That took both of us.”

He nodded.

“It doesn't have to happen again,” she added quickly.

“That's where you're wrong.” He kissed her again, lightly, his eyes sparkling with sudden humor. “Cookies?”

“Yes,” she said with a grin. “Cookies would be wonderful.”

 

She stopped back at the carriage house to lock up. Distracted over going to dinner next door and her father and Davey not finding the skull, she'd forgotten. It wasn't as if it'd make much difference. Anyone who wanted to get into the place could with little imagination or effort. But there was no point in inviting trouble.

While she was here, she decided to check on Tippy Tail and the kittens, especially with the mother cat being so skittish. Tess slipped into the kitchen, turning on just the outdoor light over the side steps. It provided enough light for her to make out the tiny kittens and their very awake mother. Tippy Tail stared at her with half-closed eyes in that haughty cat-way, but didn't move. Tess shuddered, remembering the gleam of golden eyes last night in the dark cellar.

The carriage house was quiet, and she cast eerie shadows as she moved to the sink. Going back to Boston tonight was the right thing to do, she told herself. She probably hadn't seen a damn thing last night, and she'd kissed Andrew Thorne. She needed to get her bearings. Maybe she wasn't cut out for owning a country house.

She turned on the balky faucet and splashed water on her face. She breathed, leaning over the sink, water still dripping from her face. She could use the warm spring evening, wine and chocolate chip cookies as an excuse for what had happened between them. Take Andrew off the hook, as well. The conditions were ripe for a kiss.

But talk about precipitous, she thought with a long, cathartic sigh. She liked to trust her instincts in her work, but they weren't necessarily reliable when it came to men. With her design work, she would always go with her instincts, see where they led her, because they were grounded in her experience and education, her success. Not so with her relationships. She'd had some good relationships, even if they hadn't lasted, but some notoriously rotten ones, too, especially in the past few years. Now she was more carefree—or supposed to be. Her father and Davey said she'd gone from being too impulsive to too picky. But what did they know?