The House of Dreams (4 page)

“Still going for that Pulitzer, are we? Daddy's little girl.…”

“Be happy, Jess.” Sophie swallows down her disappointment as she stands to leave.

“I'm sorry. Don't go.” He reaches over to stop her. “I'm flying back just as soon as the UN summit ends on Friday. Once you've seen this old guy tomorrow, and knocked out your story—”

“Jess, this isn't just some story.” Sophie squares up to him. “I care about this, more than anything—”

“More than me?” His brow furrows. “Come with me.”

“I can't—”

“Just think about it. You're due some leave, I know.” Sophie tenses as he stands and hugs her.
Too damn right I am. It should have been our honeymoon.
“Come with me to Paris, not for good, not yet, but just to see if we still—”

“Love one another?” Sophie reaches up and kisses his cheek.
Did you ever really love me? Or were you just in love with the idea of me?

“Stay with me tonight.” He turns to her, his jawbone brushing her temple. “My folks are out of town.”

“I can't—” Her voice breaks. “I just can't … do this anymore, Jess.” She steps away and smiles, her eyes glistening. “Besides, Mutt's waiting up for me.”

“He watches too much TV. Does he still like
Friends
?”

“He's into
Frasier
lately.”

“Is he? I guess we all move on.” Jess gazes down at her. “Stay. Please.”

Sophie shakes her head. “I've got to be at Penn Station early.”

“It'd be quicker if—”

“Good-bye, Jess.”

“No.” He raises her chin with his index finger.

“What do you mean, no?”

“I'm not saying good-bye to you, Cass. Not yet. You've got a couple of days to think about it. Montmartre, the galleries, strolling along the Seine … Wait till you see my apartment near Sacré-Cœur.”

“You don't give in, do you?”

“Never, with you.” Jess drapes her jacket over her shoulders. “One last chance, is that too much to ask?”

 

FOUR

S
OUTHAMPTON
, L
ONG
I
SLAND

Thursday, September 7, 2000

S
OPHIE

A little after ten, Sophie's train pulls in to Southampton station, and she jumps down to the platform. She slips on her sunglasses as she walks out through the low redbrick building and glances around for a cab. On the flagpole opposite the station, the Stars and Stripes snap in the warm breeze. A man with jet-black hair leans against the side of a dusty blue pickup truck parked beneath the flag. Spotting Sophie, he strides out into the road and calls to her.

“Sophie Cass?”

“Yes,” she says.
Those eyes.
“Who—”

“Harry Lambert.” He reaches out and shakes her hand. Sophie's shocked by his directness, his resemblance to Gabriel. Reading her expression, he shrugs. “Yeah, I know. Everyone says it's uncanny.” He turns his head from side to side, an amused look on his face. “I haven't seen any photos of Grandpa at my age—”

“I have. It's amazing how alike you are.” She thinks of the photos Alistair Quimby took, tucked safely in her bag. “How old are you?”

“Man, you're direct.” Harry laughs. “How about getting to know a guy first?”

“I just meant—”

“I'm twenty-six, thank you for your interest.”

“Who says I'm interested?” Sophie takes off her sunglasses.

“Say, I know you.”

“I don't think so.”

“You were at that opening in SoHo a few months back. Red dress.” His eyes crinkle. “I tried to get your attention, but you were deep in conversation with some stiff in a suit.”

She remembers the night, the argument. Jess had left for Paris the next day. “I don't remember—I mean, I'm sure I'd have noticed you.” It was on the tip of her tongue to say:
I'm sure I would have noticed someone who looks so like the man I've spent months researching
.

“Yeah, well, sometimes you don't see what's right under your nose.” Harry smiles. “I looked kind of different then, too—I'd shaved my hair off.”

“Bad breakup?”

“No.” He runs his hand through his hair. “Though there was that, too. I did it for charity.”

“Well, small world.”

“Gabe got your letter,” he says. “We figured you might be on this train if you were coming in from the city.”

“And what? You wanted to stop me getting to see him?”

Harry shrugs. “Just wanted to check you out.”

“So?”

Harry searches for the word. “Unexpected.”

“Look, I can appreciate you're protective of him.” She pauses. “Hey—how did you know it was me?”

“Magic.” Harry strolls toward the truck. When Sophie doesn't follow him, he turns to her. “Okay, I did my research, too.” A smile flickers over his lips. “On Yahoo. Wanted to see what we're up against.”

Sophie walks after him this time, and he puts his arm out, protecting her from the traffic. He opens the passenger door of the truck and helps her in. Sophie glances at the child's car seat strapped to the bench and throws her bag down into the footwell. She's surprised at the jolt of disappointment she feels. “Thanks.” The cabin smells of fresh-cut timber and oil. She notices he's wearing heavy work boots. His faded jeans are splashed with white paint, but his crumpled blue-and-white-checked shirt is clean—she catches the fresh scent of detergent as he winds down the window.

Harry starts the engine, and
Bear in the Big Blue House
blasts from the speakers. “Sorry.” He flicks the stereo to the radio station. “There goes my street cred.”

“Very smooth,” Sophie says, laughing. Harry ejects the CD and flips it out. He reaches for the glove compartment as he watches the traffic, the back of his hand accidentally brushing her knee. Sophie shifts her leg and searches for the case, taking the disc from him.

“I sometimes forget to turn it off—”

“C'mon, admit it. You love
Bear
.”

Harry glances over at her as he pulls out onto Hampton Road. “Who doesn't?” Sophie tucks the disc back in the glove compartment, dappled shadow from the tree-lined road dancing over her arm. “Pick whatever you want.” Savage Garden is playing on the radio.

“No, this is fine.” She slides her sunglasses down and settles back, her arm resting on the open window.
I knew I loved you …
Sophie can't help thinking of the photograph of Gabriel and Annie as she looks at Harry.

“How old's your kid?” she says.

“Kid?” Sophie gestures at the car seat. “No, she's my niece. I just help my sister out sometimes, dropping her at nursery.”

“Oh.” As they drive on past high hedges, white clapboard houses peeking above, she relaxes. Sophie reaches into her bag for some gum, and she spots the Henry James essay, the note. Her mother's voice comes to her:
good-looking, sense of humor, good with children …
She offers him a stick, and the scent of fresh mint fills the air. “Tell me what you meant by unexpected?”

“Thanks. You've just surprised me, that's all. From those hard-assed letters of yours we were expecting—”

“We?”

“The family.” Harry spins the wheel. “My dad spoke with your mom the other day, Miss…? Ms.?”

“Doctor.”

“Doctor?”

“Art history.” Sophie looks over at him as they stop at a junction. “Though I do know a little first aid.”

“I'll bear that in mind if I need mouth-to-mouth.”

Those eyes,
Sophie thinks, easing the gum against the roof of her mouth with her tongue. She feels the heat rising in her blood, molten, warm.

“Dad's normally so protective of Gabe he won't let any journalists near him.” Harry glances at Sophie. “But your mom was pretty persuasive.”

“She has a way with words. You may have heard of her—Paige Cass?”

“Vaguely. Poetry's not really my thing.”

“What is your ‘thing,' Mr. Lambert?”

“Harry. I'm an artist.”

“Like your grandfather?”

“And you are a writer, like your father.” Sophie looks at him, surprised. “I told you I checked you out, Dr. Cass.”

“Sophie.”

Harry drives on. “Jack Cass, Pulitzer Prize–winning
New York Times
journalist and all-round hero.…”

“Bravo.”

“So what is this? Trying to prove you're as good as Daddy? Going in for the big story?”

“Something like that.” Sophie folds her arms.

“What happened with him? I saw he was killed—was he on assignment?”

“Now who's direct?” Sophie shakes her head, a tendril of hair loosening. “No. It was the wrong drugstore, wrong holdup, wrong time to be a hero.” She turns to the window, gazing out as a succession of identical brick driveways with impenetrable electric gates sweeps past.

“Damn, I'm sorry.” Harry reaches over and touches her arm, waits for her to look at him. “There's never a wrong time to be a hero.”

Sophie acknowledges his kindness, a tilt of her head. “Maybe you're right.” She felt it, at his touch, a quickening. Desire blooms in her like hunger. She looks up the road, hiding her surprise. “I took you for a contractor.”

Harry settles back, one hand on the wheel, his other arm looped easily across the back of the bench seat. “Got to pay the bills somehow.”

“I assumed—”

“What? That none of us have to work, because of Gabe?” Harry throws his head back and laughs. “You really haven't met him, have you?” He indicates to turn off the main road. “Listen, I've got to do a couple of chores on the way. Do you mind?”

“Sure, no problem. As long as we get to Gabriel on time.”

*   *   *

After driving for a time, Harry pulls into the yard of an architectural salvage store and switches off the engine. Weathered stone garden statues and a pair of Doric columns line the entrance to the clapboard barn, a brass bedstead leans by the doorway, basking in the sun. “I won't be long.”

In the rearview mirror, Sophie watches him walking away. He moves with a lean, agile strength. A blue glass lantern hanging in the tree by the barn door swings in the breeze, catches the light.
What am I doing? I haven't felt like this since …
Sophie flicks back through her memories.
When? Since the first time I saw Jess? No, this is different.
She quickly flips down the sun visor and slicks some Carmex across her lips, lets down her hair.
Meeting Jess was crazy, and wonderful, and Paris …
Her green eyes are dark in the shaded mirror.
But it wasn't like this.
By the time Harry returns, arms laden with tiles, she is leaning against the truck, idly scrolling through her phone.

“What do you think?” he says to her, dumping the tile boxes in the back. “First impression?”

“Bit wary, but charming in a rugged artist slash builder way.…”

“Less of your lip, missy—as Gabe would say.” He puts his hands on his hips. “Not me, the tiles.”

“Kitchen or bathroom?” She stands beside him, feels him watching her.

“Bathroom floor.”

“Those.” She runs her fingertips over the warm limestone slabs.

“Yeah, that's what I thought.” He walks around and opens the door for her.

“Is this for a project?” she asks as Harry starts the car.

“Nope, I'm renovating a place up the coast.”

“Really?” Sophie turns to him, her leg tucked beneath her. “I've always dreamed of doing that.” Her imagination runs ahead of her. She pictures an empty house, white rooms full of light, two chairs on the porch, talking late into the night.

“It's not much at the moment,” he says. “But it's a start, and I'm going to build a little gallery on the side as soon as I can.” He glances at her. “In fact, I could do with a curator—someone who could write the catalogs and so on.”

Sophie shrugs. “You never know. If you build it—”

“She will come?” Harry grins. “I loved that film when I was a kid.”

“Yeah, so did I.” Sophie leans her head against the palm of her hand as she looks at him. It's like looking at Gabriel, but with none of the hardness and anger etched into every photograph she has seen of him at that age.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Sophie says. She had been wondering what it would be like to kiss him. “You're just … unexpected, too.” She glances at her watch. “Listen, do you mind if we head over to the house now? I don't want to be late.”

He hesitates. “Sure.” He pulls out onto the main road again.

“Is it far?”

“No.” She feels a distance between them, suddenly. “Do you know Flying Point?”

Sophie shakes her head. “Nope.”

“City girl, huh?” Harry looks on ahead.

Sophie frowns, doesn't correct him. “Any advice? I mean, anything you can suggest that might make it easier?”

“With Gabe?” Harry puts his foot down, heading toward the coast. “Just be yourself. He doesn't like phonies.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“Take it easy on him, okay?” She sees the concern in his eyes as he turns to her. “Gabe's not … I mean, he's ninety-five.”

“About that—”

“Look. You're talking to the wrong person. You have some great theory about Gabe, then have it out with him. I tend to trust people, you know? Treat them how they treat me. And Gabe…” Harry pauses. “He's the best.” They fall silent as Harry drives on. Sophie glances at her watch again. Five to twelve. “Not much further.” The sudden edge in his voice cuts through her. “Look, in fact, do you mind if I drop you here? It's not far.”