The Carriage House

Twelve

Dinner 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-tak-ing?"

"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?

She dried her face with a paper towel and touched her fingers to her mouth. And smiled. It had been a hell of a kiss.

She glanced back at the cat. "Couldn't you at least give the box in the bathroom a try?"

Maybe the night on her own would inspire Tippy Tail to depart from Tess's camp bed. Tess would be back in the morning. She'd search the cellar and identify what she'd seen that had transformed itself, at least in her mind, into a skeleton. She wasn't cutting and running.

She switched off the lights and went outside, thought about knocking on Andrew's door and taking up his offer of a guest room. But that would be a mistake. She needed to get herself back to familiar territory and process the past twenty-four hours, not set herself up for even more to sort out.

The wind gusted, whistling in the trees. Even in the dark, she could see the white and pale lavender blossoms on the lilac hedge whipping around in the stiff breeze. She shivered and jumped off the steps. Time to clear out.

There was a loud creak and a whomp.

Her heart raced. She stopped, not moving. What the hell was that?

The bulkhead door. She relaxed slightly. Davey must not have secured it properly and the wind had blown it up and back down again. The latch, she recalled, was in rough shape. The thing probably hadn't been used in years.

But what if she was wrong?

She doubled back and unlocked the kitchen door, ran inside and dumped her mason jar of lilacs into the sink. She took the jar with her back outside, slowing her pace. Her eyes were reasonably adjusted to the darkness.

It couldn't be a ghost. Ghosts didn't use the damn bulkhead. They could go through the cracks in the walls. They were ghosts.

She opened her car door, figuring that whatever she did, it would be with a gas pedal under her foot. She set her mason jar on the passenger seat and snatched up her cell phone. Maybe she should just call it a day and get the damn police over here. Tell them she thought she'd seen a skeleton last night, heard something tonight, and let them have a look.

Harley Beckett came through the lilacs, and Tess dropped the cell phone and grabbed her mason jar.

"Was that you I heard?" She slid out from behind the wheel, back onto her gravel driveway with both her jar and her cell phone. "You're lucky I didn't throw my jar at you."

"Back inside." His expression was dead serious, his tone uncompromising. He pointed to the kitchen door. "Go."

Tess didn't move. "Why? What's going on?"

"I heard something. Back inside. I'm not arguing with you."

"It was the bulkhead door. The wooden latch is rotted."

She could see him gritting his teeth. "At least wait in your damn car."

"No. I'm going with you." She proceeded past him into the grass, then stopped, handing him her mason jar. "Here, you're the ex-cop. You'll know how to use this better than I will."

"I'd rather have a.38."

But he took the jar and apparently gave up on convincing her to do what he said, because he pushed ahead of her without a word. They walked through the tall grass between her yard and the lilacs, their fragrant scent overpowering now, strangely disquieting.

As Tess had anticipated, the bulkhead door was unlatched, and another strong gust lifted it an inch or two, then banged it back down again.

"My father and Davey must have left it like this," she said.

Harl eyed her, his expression intense as he apparently considered the situation and her role. He wouldn't necessarily top her list of people she'd want looking after one of her kids. He pointed to her. "Hand me your cell phone."

"Why? You're not calling the police, are you?"

"Haviland, you're a pain in the ass. I don't know what Andrew sees in you. Give me the phone."

She handed it over. "What did you hear? Do you think someone was back here, sneaking around in my cellar?" She took a breath, the taciturn nature of Jedidiah Thorne's descendants enough to unravel anyone. "I'm beginning to think this place is haunted."

"I'm calling Andrew." Using what he had left of his right thumb, he banged out a number. "Thorne? Harl. She's fine. We'll be right over." He clicked off the phone and handed it back to her. "Let's go."

"No way. I'm going back to Boston. It was the wind. I see now where Dolly gets her active imagination, from you and her father."

Harl snatched the cell phone out of her hand, hit redial. "She's arguing. I'll come stay with Dolly. You come here and haul her ass over. My woman-haul-ing days are long gone."

Tess set her jaw. "I'll be gone before he gets here."

She had him, and he knew it. Unless he used physical force, he couldn't stop her. "All right. Good. Go."

"You can't expect me to stick around out here with two strange men-"

"Nope.You're being smart. Get in your car and go."

She eyed him suspiciously. He didn't have the subtlety or patience to try persuasion, but this was giving up too easily. "What are you going to do?"

"I've got a chest of drawers I need to finish painting."

A flat-out lie, and they both knew it. There was nothing she could do. She wasn't telling him about the skeleton, not now, not here. What if it had been him she'd heard, trying to sneak into the bulkhead? He wouldn't have known she'd doubled back to lock her door. After all, what did she know about Harley Beckett? Or Andrew Thorne, for that matter.

She had no good options.

These two men had no more reason to trust her than she did them. Less. She'd lied to them. What would they think if she drove out of here and Harl went down to her cellar and found the skeleton?

At least she was well aware that kissing Andrew had no bearing on anything.

"Call me if it turns out there was someone out here," Tess said, and gave Harl her cell phone number as she started toward her car. She glanced back at him. "But it was the wind."

He said, "Tess, I have your cell phone."

"Well, damn it, give it to me."

He tossed it to her, studying her closely. "You want your mason jar back, too?"

"No, you can keep it."

Her cell phone rang in her hand. She clicked it on, and Andrew said, "Drive carefully."

She almost caved-but she couldn't tell him about the skeleton. Not here in the dark, with Harley Beckett watching her every move, suspicious, not after the scare she'd just had. She couldn't rely on instincts, not this time. She had to think.

"I will."

"I can't leave Dolly here alone, not if there's even a chance there was someone out there. Harl doesn't want to call the police?"

She lowered the phone and asked him. "Harl, do you want to call the police?"

"To do what, fix the latch on your bulkhead?"

She returned to Andrew, edging her way to the car. "He says no."

"Tess," he said softly, "what happened last night?"

"Snakes." She cleared her throat, sticking to her story even if she knew he didn't believe it, never had. She'd tell him the truth when she could, not now. "I was worried about snakes."

She climbed in behind the wheel, got out her keys, tried two before she got the right one into the ignition. Andrew hadn't yet hung up. Neither had she.

"Tess."

She licked her lips, her throat burning. "I'll be back in the morning."

Silence.

"Tell Dolly that Tippy Tail ate all the food she brought her."

She clicked off and backed out of the driveway, wondering how long it would take before he and his cousin, both or one at a time, searched her cellar. Would they wait until daylight?

What if they already knew a skeleton was there and decided to move it? What if they'd put it there? What if one had and the other didn't know about it?

She was getting carried away. They wouldn't be making such a big deal about why she'd screamed last night if they had any responsibility for the skeleton. They'd get her out of town as fast and quietly as possible, then make their move. They wouldn't invite her to dinner. Andrew wouldn't have kissed her.

What if they were suspicious of her?

Her mind was racing. She couldn't think coherently.

She pulled in to a well-lit gas station on a busy main road and called Susanna Galway.

"Susanna? Good, you're home."

"Where else would I be on a Saturday night? What's up? How's the haunted carriage house?"

Tess couldn't get a word out. Her throat was so constricted, and suddenly she couldn't seem to get any air. She made a choking, gurgling sound.

"Tess?"

"I found a skeleton in my cellar."

The words came in a rush, and Susanna sighed. "Well, damn. Human?"

"I think so."

"You think so? What do the police say?"

"I don't know, I haven't called them."

"Their number is 911. Easy to remember."

"Susanna…"

"I'm hanging up. You call me after you've talked to them."

"There are complications-"

"Ghosts, I know. And you're not sure what the hell you saw. You don't want people thinking you're a weenie or the sort of woman who conjures skeletons out of thin air. Yeah, I know all the complications. You've also got a rich eccentric who's been missing for a year. Call the police."

She hung up.

Tess stared at her dead cell phone. Then she dialed the police.