The Carriage House

Seventeen

The early news was on the television above the bar at Jim's Place, and Davey Ahearn had just slid onto his stool. Tess had hoped she'd beat him into the pub. She tried to ignore him. Her father was taking an order at several tables pushed together, crowded with university students. She had no doubt he'd spotted her. He always knew who came in and out of his place.

She tried not to look furious, out of control and just plain frazzled. She was getting behind in her work, and it had been one of those days she was bombarded by calls, faxes and e-mails. Even her regular mail was more than usual.

But that wasn't it. What had tipped the scales was seeing Andrew Thorne down in Old Granary Burial Ground, walking among the tombstones and glancing up at her window.

Spying on her.

By the time she'd charged down her four flights of stairs, around Beacon to Park and down Tremont, into the centuries-old cemetery, he was gone. She'd packed it in for the day and headed to Jim's Place.

"You're in deep shit," Davey said, never mind that she was pretending she hadn't seen him. "A skeleton. Jesus H. Christ, Tess."

"Davey, I'm not in the mood."

"Jimmy heard last night. He's been waiting all day for you to show up and ask his advice. Me, I had an emergency kept me busy. Flooded basement. No skeletons."

She cast him a foul look. "You're making me sorry I came here."

"You're not sorry," Davey said. "You're never sorry. You take life one bite at a time, no worrying, no regrets."

"I have regrets." "Name one." "That you're my godfather." "Ha." Her father eased back behind the bar. Without a word, he spooned up a bowl of thick beef stew and set it in front of her. He buttered two slices of white bread, cut them in triangles, put them on a plate and also set that in front of her.

Tess said, "Pop, I've stirred up a hornets' nest." "Hornets? Hell, I'd take hornets any day over a goddamn dead body."

"It wasn't a body. It was bones. There's a difference."

He stared at her. "There's no difference."

"There is. A body is-" She stared at her bubbling beef stew, fighting for the right words. "Fresher."

"Oh, shit," Davey said. "There goes my appetite."

Tess was focused on her father. "How did you find out?"

"I have my sources. You know that."

Susanna wouldn't have squealed, not about a skeleton. "I could have moved to California. You don't know a soul in California."

"Why do me that favor?" He snatched the towel off his shoulder, started cleaning the wooden bar furiously. "No, stay here instead, step on dead bodies right under my nose and don't tell me. I love it that you didn't move away."

Tess was silent. It had never once occurred to her to move away. She had friends in San Francisco she liked to visit, but Boston was home.

"Eat your stew," her father snapped. "You look as if you haven't slept in days."

Davey went around behind the bar and helped himself to another bowl of stew. He was immaculate, his big mustache perfectly groomed. If he'd been wading in a flooded basement all day, he didn't look it. Probably had a date later on, Tess thought. A widowed bar-owner father, a twice-divorced plumber godfather. No wonder she had her issues with men.

And Thorne. What a sneaky bastard.

Davey returned to his stool, dipped a hunk of bread into the steaming brown gravy. "Worst I figured was snakes."

"What did the police say?" her father asked.

"They don't believe I saw anything."

"You want me to talk to them?"

"No!" She almost choked on her stew, which she'd mindlessly started to eat. She wasn't hungry. "No, Pop, that's okay. There's not much they can do, even if they did believe me."

Davey made ghost sounds at the other end of the bar.

"Pop," Tess said, staring at the hunks of meat in her stew, the fat carrots and potatoes. Her life didn't have to be this complicated. "Pop, why didn't you remarry?"

"What?"

"Never mind. It was a stray thought. You're right. I haven't slept well." She smiled at him. "The stew's just what I need."

He shook his head as if there was no understanding her and returned to his work, fixing drinks for the university students. Beers, mostly. He placed the frosted glasses on a scarred tray that he carried to their tables. When a guy complained about the delay, Jim Haviland pointed a finger at the door and offered him subway fare home. He was in no mood. Usually he'd just hand complainers a towel and offer to pay minimum wage if they thought he needed more help.

When he returned to the bar, Tess told him about no one having heard a peep out of Ike Grantham in a year, and Joanna Thorne dying in an avalanche, and Jedidiah Thorne dying at sea. He listened to every word as he continued to work. Then he said, "You mean even the sister hasn't heard from this rich flake?"

"That's right."

Davey, who'd managed to listen without interrupting, sighed. "A year's long enough for what's crawling in that cellar to have turned him into bones. Jesus, Tess. You couldn't have given me a heads up before I went in there?"

"I was thinking I'd imagined it. When you didn't see anything, I hoped that was the all-clear."

"Oh, thanks. Set me up for a goddamn heart attack. Plumber drops dead on top of skeleton. Real nice. You should have said, ‘Davey, Pop, you mind looking over in that corner there, make sure I didn't see a skeleton last night after all?'"

Tess ate more of her stew. He had a point. "You're right. I'm sorry."

"I know I'm right, and the hell you're sorry."

"It was an awkward moment."

"Tess, getting a piece of meat stuck in your teeth is an awkward moment."

"Davey, okay, I get your point."

She frowned. Something had caught her eye at the back of the pub. A movement, a reflection. She spun around on her stool.

"Damn."

Andrew Thorne was at a table at the far end of the bar. He had his back to the wall, in the shadows.

Tess stiffened and glared at her father. "Why didn't you tell me he was here?"

"Who?"

"Who, my foot. Andrew Thorne. My neighbor."

"He's here? Oh, yeah. I didn't recognize him."

Tess breathed in through her nostrils. It was a bald-faced, unabashed, deliberate lie, and he didn't care if she knew it.

He scooped ice into a glass. "You don't tell me things, don't be surprised I don't tell you things."

"This is not a time for fair play's turnabout, Pop. I trusted you!"

He leveled a fatherly gaze on her and didn't say a word.

"Got what you deserved," Davey muttered, sipping his beer.

Tess jumped off her stool, heat rushing to her face. She pushed past the students and kicked an out-of-place chair on her way to the back of the bar. She pushed up her sleeves. She was still in her work clothes, hot, her skin suddenly hypersensitive.

Andrew had an empty beer glass and bowl of stew in front of him. He looked up at her, his eyes very blue, steady. He leaned back in his chair with a confidence she wouldn't have expected from him being so deep into her own turf.

She wanted to throw something. "What do you think you're doing?"

He kept his eyes on her. "Having a beer and a bowl of stew. I hear the clam chowder's excellent, too."

"Earlier." She'd barely stopped for air, could feel her hand touch the corner of the table, uncontrollable energy surging through her. "At Old Granary outside my office. What were you doing there?"

He stretched out his long legs, eyes, that amazing blue color, still pinned on her. She wasn't sure he'd even blinked. "Checking out John Hancock's grave."

"Bullshit, you were spying on me. Why?"

He shrugged. "Because Ike Grantham gave you the carriage house next door."

"He didn't give it to me. I earned it."

"And because you say you found human remains in the cellar."

Her breathing was shallow, rapid. She could taste the dirt and the dust from that night, see the skull, its yellowed teeth.

She spun around and yelled to her father, "Pop, throw him out."

"You don't like him, you throw him out."

Davey had turned around in his stool, his back against the bar, a smirk on his face as he watched the show-which only further infuriated Tess.

She flew back around at Andrew, her hand still on the corner of his table. "Get up, Thorne. You have no business being here. If you wanted to check me out, you should have come up to my office and knocked on my door. You should have asked me to take you here."

His eyes narrowed, fine lines at their corners, a muscle working in his jaw. "I have a six-year-old daughter, Tess. I'll do what I have to do to make sure you're not a threat to her."

"Get out."

He folded his hands on his flat middle and didn't move.

Tess knew she was out of control, didn't care. This was her father's pub, her space. Andrew was insinuating himself into her life, deliberately trying to throw her off balance because he didn't trust her. Or because he had something to hide? Possibilities came at her. Damn, she'd stepped on a hornets' nest all right, and now they were mad and swarming.

She lifted the table with one hand and pulled it away from him. He remained in his chair, but his eyes had darkened noticeably. Tess didn't care. She picked up an empty chair and flung it. It toppled over, and one of the university students said, "Hey, what's going on?"

"A brawl," Davey said. "Stay out of it."

Andrew didn't say anything. He unclasped his hands and calmly scratched the side of his mouth.

Tess kicked over the second unoccupied chair at his table, then picked it up and slammed it back down on the floor. Days of frustration, tension and lack of sleep were taking their toll, and she wanted release. She'd seen a brawl or two. She wanted to bust up the place, get some kind of reaction out of Andrew Thorne.

She grabbed his stew bowl and threw it against the wall. The pottery was so thick, it broke only into two pieces.

"Jimmy," Davey said, "you keeping track of the damage? It's going to add up."

Andrew kept his gaze pinned on Tess. It was kissing him, too, she realized, that had her out of control. Her reaction to him. Physically, emotionally. She'd tried to pass it off on the odd weekend in Bea-con-by-the-Sea. She'd told herself when she saw him again, it wouldn't be there, this over-the-top reaction to him.

But it was. Even staring down at him from her fourth-floor window, she'd felt it.

"We need to talk," he said calmly.

She took a swing at him, figuring he was inert, but one hand shot up with lightning speed and caught her by the wrist before her fist could connect with his jaw.

He moved easily to his feet. "Calm down."

"There is nothing a woman hates more than being told to calm down."

"Tess."

The feel of his hand on hers was like a hot brand. She couldn't breathe. "Let go of me."

"Not until you promise not to punch me."

He'd done this before. Bar brawls. He wasn't just a North Shore architect.

"Hey, Tess," Davey said. "You've got to learn to pick your fights. The guy's got height, weight and experience on you."

Fury boiled up inside her, and she leveled her foot at Andrew's shin and let loose, catching him off balance. He swore. She slipped out of his grip and spun off toward the door.

He grabbed her by the elbow just as she was stepping over Davey's feet. "Tess, I said, we need to talk."

"No, we don't."

She snatched up Davey's fresh beer with her free hand and let it fly, its contents catching Andrew in the face and spewing over three dusty construction workers who'd just walked in. "Hey! What the hell?"

The place erupted. It was as if her temper and bad mood were contagious. Andrew was forced to drop her wrist in order to defend himself against a beefy man who thought the beer was his doing.

Seizing her opening, Tess jumped on Andrew's back with the blind hope of summarily tossing him out of her father's bar. She could have left. She could have gone on her way and let Jimmy Haviland and Davey Ahearn deal with Andrew Thorne. But the chance to throw him out herself was too good to pass up. This was her place. This was where she was safe. This was sacred ground. He had no business spying on her anywhere, but especially not here. She felt violated, invaded.

He didn't budge, instead reaching one arm around in back of him and sinking his grip into her thigh. "Tess, damn it!"

When she reached for Davey's stew bowl, her godfather rolled off his stool and peeled her off Thorne. "Take a swing at me, Tess, and I'll pop you in the chops."

Jim Haviland came around in front of the bar. "Okay, if I were Ben Cartwright, I'd fire my shotgun in the air, but I'm not. So, everyone, shut the hell up and sit down."

They complied, and he handed out brooms, dustpans, dampened bar towels and a round of beers, on his daughter.

She was unchagrined, but refused to look in An-drew's direction. He was standing behind her, breathing fire now. That was something. At least she'd penetrated that cool Yankee control.

She glared at her father. "If you'd thrown Thorne out like I said-"

"You know, Tess," Davey interrupted, still between her and Andrew, "I've always thought you were the head-over-heels type. You never were going to go quietly or slowly. I figure, you throw a table and a couple of chairs at a man, it means-"

"Suppose I throw a chair at you, Davey?"

He grinned, unrepentant.

"I'll get the mop," Tess said. "Help clean up." Her father shook his head. "No way. You've done enough damage. Go home and cool off." He handed her a cup of ice. "Pour that down your back. Get a good night's sleep. In the morning, you go back to those detectives, tell them you saw a goddamn skeleton and someone stole it out of your cellar. Make them look into it."

But she was in no mood for anyone to give her advice. "I'll do what I have to do." She was surly now, her head spinning, and she could feel Thorne's eyes boring into her. "Send me my bill."

Her father was losing patience, too. "I will, you can count on that."

"Come on," Andrew said, his tone quiet but uncompromising, "I'll give you a ride home."

Tess bristled. "I'll take the subway."

"Fine. I'll give you a ride to the subway station."

She relented, only because her father's likely next move was a call to the police, and she'd be spending the night in a holding cell. She shot him a knowing look. "We're even. I didn't tell you about the skeleton. You didn't tell me about Thorne."

"No way we're even." He grinned at her suddenly and leaned against the smooth, scarred wood of his bar. "I figure this time, for a change, you got the short end of the stick."