The Carriage House

Twenty-Six

It was chowder night at Jim's Place.

Davey Ahearn was on his stool at the end of the bar, and the Red Sox were playing an away game with an expansion team he didn't consider worthy of the big leagues. Tess didn't even know who it was. She was concentrating on her chowder and her argument with her father.

"The carriage house is on the state historic register," she said. "I can't do a deck with a giant hot tub. Besides, that's tacky."

"Almost getting yourself killed-that's tacky."

It had been a month. Four weeks of no skeletons, beautiful spring weather, and time with Andrew and Dolly. First, they'd made sure the six-year-old was okay. Rita Perez was a huge help, and Tess could see Harl was falling in love with the ex-nun. She'd done her part, too, because she'd once been a traumatized six-year-old girl and could talk to Dolly in a way the little girl understood.

But Dolly was resilient and creative, and a step in her healing, Tess thought, was moving from the world of royalty to oceanography. She was loading up on stuffed penguins, whales, dolphins and sea otters. But cats were still her favorite, and she'd even managed to talk her father and Harl into keeping one of the kittens, the gray one, Cement Mixer. Tippy Tail had settled in and no longer ran off for long stretches.

Tess had settled in, too, if not in Andrew's house at least in his life, and that both scared and excited her. It meant walks on the beach with him, wine on the back porch, fixing dinner together, working in the yard together, coming up with ideas for the carriage house together. And dates. Once Dolly was in good shape, Tess had pointed out that uncovering a murder and stopping a murderer didn't count as a date.

She'd spend nights in the guest room or at her apartment, never at the carriage house, never in Andrew's room, not until one night when Dolly was off with Rita Perez, Harl and the rest of the Thorne family in Gloucester, celebrating his release from the hospital.

Tess remembered every slow, delicious move Andrew made that night in his bed as they made love, the feel of his rangy, muscular body, the heat of his kisses, the look of his eyes in the dark of his bedroom. She remembered quaking with him, losing herself with him.

But thinking of such things in her father's bar could only lead to trouble. "If not for Davey, you know," she said, "I might have ended up dumped through that trapdoor myself."

Her father shook his head. "Damn, I never thought I'd hear my daughter tell me she was alive today because Davey Ahearn taught her how to kick a man in the balls when she was twelve years old."

"Best time to learn," Davey said.

Jim Haviland took her empty bowl and refilled it, not waiting to be asked. He'd also made chocolate cream pie, her favorite, because he knew she'd be here tonight. Tess understood. It was his way of telling himself she'd come through this mess intact. She was alive. Richard Montague was awaiting trial, and Lauren, both shattered and relieved by the truth of what happened to her brother, had her lawyers working out a plea bargain for her role in covering up Ike's murder.

A slim, yellowed volume had turned up in Tess's mail at work. Adelaide Morse's diary. There was no note, but Tess knew it must have come from Lauren. She'd read it in one sitting. Jedidiah Thorne was innocent. He didn't kill Benjamin Morse, yet he'd refused to mount a defense at his trial-because the evidence against him was too overwhelming and he couldn't win without a confession from Adelaide? Or because of that peculiar sense of Thorne honor Tess had come to know so well? She'd given the diary to Andrew. He could correct the public, historic record. Or not.

"I don't know how you can draw up plans for that damn place," her father said. "I'd tear it down."

"I can't. It's on the historic register."

Davey grunted. "One match. That's all it'd take."

"Look, I don't expect you two to understand, and I'm not sure I do myself, but something happened…" Tess sighed, scooping up more chowder. It was thick and creamy, a pat of butter melting into the clams and potatoes. "About a week after the police took Montague away, I'd been to see Harl in the hospital. He was trying to break out, but Rita Perez, Dolly's teacher, was there. Anyway, I stopped back at the carriage house."

"By yourself?" her father asked.

She nodded. "The bad guy was in jail."

"Up to me, you'd never go out alone again," he grumbled. "So, what happened?"

"I was standing in the big room, picturing Ike falling to his death, Richard Montague shooting Harl as he dived through the trapdoor, me fighting him off. I could see Dolly running through her yard, screaming in total panic. I could feel my chest squeezing, a panic attack coming on."

"I don't believe in panic attacks," Davey said. "I think that's a bunch of pop-psych bullshit."

Tess cast him a silencing look.

"Go on," her father said.

"Then-I know this is going to sound weird-but it's what happened. I felt this warmth surround me, this incredible sense of peace, and I knew it was Jedidiah and Ike…and Mom," she said. "They were there, all of them. And I knew it would be all right."

For two seconds, Davey and her father were silent, and she thought for once in her life, they might actually understand her creative imagination.

Then Davey snorted. "Hell, I wish I had me some ghosts today to tell me it was all right, I could open the trap on that sewer line and all those weeping-wil-low roots would just melt away. Uh-uh. Broke my goddamn plumber snake on them."

"I was going to get rid of my trapdoor," Tess said, "but I don't think so. I think I'll keep it around for you, Davey. You bug me, and I'll give you a good kick to the testicles-"

"Balls," he said. "Testicles sounds too medicinal."

"I'm not even going there."

"Chowder night, the Red Sox and a discussion of ghosts and men's privates." Andrew slid onto the stool next to her and grinned. "My kind of place."

Tess felt a surge of warmth and glanced over at Davey, wondering if he'd noticed. But she didn't care. She smiled at Andrew. "How long have you been here?"

"An hour."

"An hour?" She glared at her father. "You knew?

Is this some male thing, you not telling me he was here? Because it has to stop."

He shrugged. "You've got eyes. You can see who's here as well as I can."

"I was preoccupied."

"With fantasizing about turning a haunted carriage house into a graphic design studio," Davey said. "Geez, Thorne, I'm glad you came forward before my eyes glazed over in boredom. You're the architect. You like this stuff."

Tess kept her focus on Andrew. "Susanna's helping me with a five-year business plan. It's torture for me, but she's having a ball."

"Do you think you can skip chocolate cream pie?" he asked, his voice low, deep, sexy.

"Well, it better be for a good reason-"

"Jesus Christ," Davey said. "You want me to paint you a picture?"

She almost choked.

Her father was grinning. He produced a small stuffed animal from somewhere behind the bar and tossed it to Andrew. "Give that to Dolly. Tell her it's a blue penguin. I picked it up at the aquarium the other day."

Tess was shocked. "Since when are you sneaking off to the New England Aquarium?"

"Since I've had a membership for about a million years. You don't know everything about me, you know." He turned back to Andrew. "The blue penguins are those little guys."

"Thanks. She'll love it." He caught Tess by the arm, sending jolts of sexual energy right through her. "Now, do I have to start a brawl, or are you coming?"

They made it to her apartment, but not as far as her bedroom. She said something about having a drink, and next thing, they'd fallen on her couch, toppling stacks of folded laundry as they tore off the clothes they were wearing.

She felt warm and fit in his arms, her skin smooth and so damn tempting. Andrew knew he'd never get enough of her. Never. With mouth, tongue and teeth, he blazed a trail down her throat and stomach, lower and deeper, wanting to love every part of her, feel her shuddering with pleasure and heat.

But she had ideas of her own, as she always did. Her mouth, tongue and teeth did their own erotic torture, until restraint became impossible.

When they came together, the ferocity of his need was overwhelming. He forced himself to hold back, but she pulled him in deeper, harder, matching his rhythm. Their bodies, minds and souls seemed to melt together, separate, melt again. The release came suddenly, in a blinding, nonstop rush.

Stillness settled in slowly, tentatively. He eased between her and the back of the couch, and she slid in close to him and laid her palm on his chest. "I can feel your heartbeat." She spoke softly, as if she didn't want all of Boston to hear her. "I think it was Jedidiah who put the idea of giving me the carriage house in Ike's head, don't you? A proper ghost would know we belonged together."

"We do, do we?"

"Yes. Absolutely. You, me and Dolly. And Harl. I'm talking to him about moving his shop to the carriage house. He'd have more space. It'd be better for both of us, I think." She sighed, contented. "This will be so much fun."

Andrew smiled at her. She was a strong woman, and she never stopped. That mind was always going. "Work and living arrangements can be worked out. Let's go back to you and me belonging together."

"We do, you know. I think I've known it, on some basic instinctive level, for the past year, and that's why I was reluctant to take possession of the carriage house. I knew I'd have to go through the fires of hell before I could have a man like you. And I did. We did." She smoothed her palms over his shoulders, her eyes fixed on his. "I love you very much, if that's what you're asking."

"I wasn't asking-I was trying to tell you the same thing." He kissed her softly. "I love you. I want to be a part of your life forever, wherever it takes you."

His cell phone rang, which meant it was Dolly. He rummaged on the floor for it. "Yeah, honey, what's up?"

"Honey?" Harl grunted. "I haven't been called that since I was six months old. Hey, Dolly just threw up. No fever. She's fine. Just wanted you to know."

"Should I come get her?"

"Nah. It was a mechanical thing."

"What did you feed her?"

In the background, he could hear Rita Perez insisting Harl tell him about the sardines. Harl sighed. "She wanted to try sardines. She didn't like them, so she washed them down with some other stuff. Chips and things. You know. Kids."

"I'll be there in the morning. Give her ginger ale. If she gets worse, call me."

Harl swore under his breath. "You'd better get here. She's heaving again. Man. I told her the Chinese food would put her over the top."

The line went dead.

Andrew looked at Tess, who was grinning. It was good to see. All the tension of uncovering Ike Grantham's murder had gone out of her. "We have to run up to Gloucester. Harl doesn't do sick kids."

But she was laughing.

He feigned a glower. "And what's so funny?"

"You, me, Dolly and Harl. And Rita Perez. Pop and Davey." She sighed as she rolled off the couch and picked clean clothes out of her scattered laundry. "My life couldn't be better."

He smiled. "Neither could mine."

He crawled into his clothes, and when they walked out into the warm Boston night, he felt it, just the way Tess had described her experience at the carriage house. And he knew.

All his ghosts were at peace.