Beauty in Hiding

by Robin Patchen

  Jack nodded slowly while the man’s words penetrated. “I’d never thought of it that way.”

  “If you’re in this for the long haul, you have to. That’s how people screw this up. They look at income and expenses, but they forget that, over thirty years, there’ll be a lot of repairs. So you have to plan on that, put away money to cover new furnaces and roofs and water heaters, and—”

  “Floors and paint and appliances,” Steve said. “And everybody wants air conditioning now. In my day, we could handle a little heat, but nowadays people think it’s inhumane if every room isn’t kept at seventy degrees.”

  Their suggestions spun in Jack’s mind. What the men were saying made sense. But that would definitely affect his numbers. “Looks like I’ve got some work to do.”

  Red squeezed his shoulder. “You’ll get there.”

  An idea crossed his mind. “Hey, do you want to go for a ride with me, drive by the place? It’s only about fifteen minutes away.”

  “I been staring at Steve’s ears long enough. I’d love to.”

  Jack turned to Steve. “How about you? Would you be able—?”

  “Elizabeth’s picking me up. I’ll wait for her.”

  Jack started to stand, then glanced at his watch and sat back down. “Actually, I probably need to check with Harper, make sure she doesn’t mind.”

  Red waved him off. “Use that phone you got there and give her a ring. She won’t care.”

  Jack stepped out of the rec center and was dialing when Harper walked in the back door. She froze when she saw him. Was that a blush that rose to her cheeks?

  He hoped not. He certainly hoped she wasn’t embarrassed about all she’d told him the day before. His problem wasn’t what she had told him but what she hadn’t. And he knew there had been plenty left unsaid.

  He took a few steps toward her. “I was just about to call you.”

  She approached as if he were a hostile animal. “It was slow, so Bonnie let me go early.” She stopped a few feet from him. “Is Gramps okay?”

  He hoped his smile would relax her. “He’s fine. I was going to ask if you’d mind if I took him for a ride. Now that you’re here, you can join us.”

  “A ride where?”

  “I’m looking at a property, and I thought your grandfather might be able to give me some advice.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “He’s not strong enough to be traipsing all over—”

  “We were just going to drive by. It’s a nice day. I figured he might like to get out in the sunshine.”

  She bit her bottom lip. Her gaze flicked to the door to the rec center. “He wants to go with you?”

  “Said he did.”

  She swallowed. “I guess that’s okay.”

  “Good,” Jack said. “You can leave your car here and go with us. I’ll drive.”

  “I’ll go on home. You two don’t need me.”

  That was true. They didn’t. But now that she was here, he craved her company. “I thought we’d look at the house, then maybe drive over to the beach and get some ice cream.”

  Her lips twitched. “It’s not that warm outside.”

  “In New Hampshire, sunshine means ice cream. The temperature is irrelevant.”

  He could practically see her gears moving, trying to decide what to do.

  “It’s really good ice cream,” he added.

  Finally, she smiled for real. “You talked me into it.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Harper watched the world slide by from the backseat of Jack’s pickup. The evergreens shone greener against the backdrop of the sapphire blue sky. The forest on either side of the road called to her, deep and inviting. This land of trees and trees and more trees was so different from where she’d grown up in Kansas. When she was a kid, she’d loved those wide-open spaces, the skies that burst in color every morning and night. There was a little rise not far from her house in Wichita where she used to ride her bike. From the very crest, she’d have sworn she could see all the way to Canada. She used to imagine some little girl looking south toward her, wearing a heavy jacket and a knit cap and waving. The years since had taught Harper her vision wasn’t nearly as good as she’d once believed.

  Nowadays, she could barely see her next step.

  What had Gramps told her? God’s word was a lamp unto her feet? She wished it were more like a street lamp and less like a cheap flashlight with a dying bulb.

  When she’d been young, all those open spaces had made her feel very small in the universe. Small, but she’d always known she was loved. Now, as Harper peered at the tops of trees that made the ones back home look like oversize bushes, she felt that smallness again. Small, insignificant, and lost.

  Up front, Jack and Gramps talked real estate. She couldn’t keep up with their conversation and didn’t care to. All she could think about—all she’d thought about since Jack had left her house the previous day—were the confessions she’d made to him.

  As if he were her priest, not her landlord.

  She needed more than a drive in the country and some ice cream. She needed a brain transplant.

  Seriously. Had Jack needed to know all her ugly history? Now that he knew, he could never un-know. To him, she’d forever be a former exotic dancer.

  Fine, then. Who cared what he thought? As long as he didn’t assume she’d give him a private show, they were fine. Maybe now he’d stop asking her questions, stop trying to dig into her life.

  She swiped her stupid tears. Her heart didn’t understand what her head knew. That, as desperately as she wanted a friend, she couldn’t have one. Eventually, everyone would ask questions she couldn’t answer, questions that would only get her in trouble. She and Gramps couldn’t run again. Gramps wouldn’t survive. And the only way to stay here was to fly under the radar.

  Keep her head down and her mouth shut.

  So what in the world was she doing in the backseat of Jack Rossi’s pickup truck?

  Definitely time for that brain transplant.

  But Gramps was with them. She was safe from spitting out all her secrets as long as she didn’t end up alone with Jack. That was when her mind got muddled and confused.

  The truck slowed, and Jack turned into a parking lot that served three white buildings.

  “All of them?” Gramps asked.

  Jack nodded and peered through the windshield at the two-story structures. The buildings were square and so close together they were practically joined at the corners like spaces on a checkerboard. The parking lot sat in front of them. Jack was thinking of buying this? What must it be like to have that kind of freedom, that kind of optimism?

  “Each one has eight apartments,” Jack said. “Four downstairs, four up.”

  Gramps was nodding slowly. “Twenty-four apartments, but only three roofs. Only one parking lot to maintain. Only a handful of walkways that need to be cleared of snow and ice. Something to be said for that.”

  Jack focused on him. “Am I crazy to take on such a huge project? All I have under my belt is your house and mine.”

  “And years of management experience,” Gramps said.

  Harper studied the old man as he focused on the buildings. His mind seemed to be churning, considering. She loved watching him work. She’d seen so little of that since Derrick had tried to con him out of money this summer. Between his worsening dementia, the viruses he’d battled, and the antifreeze—not to mention his broken heart after what Derrick had done—it had been a long time since Gramps had been interested in anything but the TV. Today, he seemed one hundred percent the real estate investor he’d been for thirty years.

  Gramps turned to Jack. “You need to pull together those numbers we talked about. Bring them by when you’re ready, and we’ll talk through it.”

  Jack took one last look at the building. “I’ll do that. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your help.”

  “Glad somebody values me. That idiot grandkid of mine…”

  Harper patted Gramps’s shoulder
.

  He glanced at her, mouth pinched shut.

  After a pause, Jack shifted into drive. “Let’s go get that ice cream.”

  Gramps wasn’t in the habit of talking about Derrick with strangers, mostly because there was very little good he could say. But he was coming to trust Jack. As long as he didn’t let the truth slip, they should be all right.

  But what if he did? She’d need a story, a plausible story to explain her dishonesty. And she’d need to improve her skills at lying.

  Please, God. Tell me how to handle this.

  There was no answer. She envied those people who seemed so close to God, they heard His voice. Right now, there was nothing she could do but stay on this ride and hope it would come to a soft landing.

  Jack weaved through some of the prettiest little villages Harper had ever seen. Bright white churches and lovely town commons with gleaming monuments and colorful parks. They passed old farmhouses, some just a few feet from the road, with pretty barns and lush bushes and towering trees. Finally, they turned a corner and crested a hill, and she got her first glimpse of the rocky New England coast.

  “Wow.” Her word was barely a whisper.

  Jack glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “I thought you’d like it.”

  “It’s breathtaking.”

  They turned onto the road that hugged the shoreline. She was mesmerized by the waves as they crashed against the boulders below. On the other side of the street, mansions of every shape and style overlooked the raging waters. Many had platforms standing above the roofs.

  “I bet those are good for sunbathing,” she said.

  Jack glanced at one particularly huge house. “Those are widows’ walks.”

  “Back in the day,” Gramps said, “women would watch for ships, waiting for their husbands and sons and fathers to return.”

  She could imagine it, the women’s fears, the prayers they’d lift up from their perches above the sea, prayers for a glimpse of the ships that would bring their loved ones home. Harper’s perch was her floor and her knees, and her prayers were for a glimpse of freedom from this crazy situation she’d found herself in. A hope for a future.

  They stopped at a little white building with a sign shaped like an ice cream cone. A few folks were sitting at the outdoor picnic benches enjoying their treats.

  Jack parked and opened her door.

  She slid out. “Thanks.”

  He grabbed Gramps’s walker from the bed of his pickup and hurried to help him out.

  A cold breeze blew in from the ocean, and she shivered. Slowly, they walked toward the window on the side of the building.

  “What’s your poison?” Jack said.

  “Hot chocolate?” she suggested.

  He chuckled and shifted them toward a door. “We can eat inside.”

  They stepped into the tiny—and blessedly heated—dining room. Two of the six tables were occupied, one with an older couple, the other with two teenage girls. The girls seemed to be focused more on the long-haired boy behind the counter than on their cones.

  Harper studied the board and settled on strawberry.

  Jack shook his head as if he’d never been more disappointed. “I pegged you for a mint chocolate chip girl.”

  “So far off, you’re not even on the radar.”

  Jack turned to Gramps. “How about you?”

  “Cookies-and-cream for me,” he said.

  “Good choice.” Jack placed their order. When Harper reached for her wallet, he stopped her with a hand on her arm. “My treat.”

  She considered arguing, then decided against it. She couldn’t afford it, and Jack knew that.

  This place was shifting her mood. Yes, her life was falling apart. Yes, she was tangled in a web of deception she might never escape. But the ocean, the blue skies, this charming ice cream parlor… There was something to be said for not being at work or at home, taking a break from the worries that weighed her down.

  Jack handed her the ice cream cone, gave Gramps his double scoop of cookies-and-cream, and then sat with his own.

  “What’d you get?” she asked.

  “Peanut butter chocolate chip.”

  She regarded his cone. “Looks yummy.”

  He leaned it toward her. “Try it.”

  “Oh, well…”

  “Go on,” he said. “It won’t kill you.”

  She licked a tiny spot, and he scoffed. “You can do better than that.”

  She took a bigger bite, tasted the salty peanut butter and sweet chocolate. “You’re right. That’s good.”

  “Now you’ll know for next time.”

  Next time.

  Wouldn’t that be nice?

  Gramps settled against the wall and stared out the window and across the street at the long stone jetty that reached into the ocean. “Sure is pretty here.”

  “Is it much different from the coastline where you’re from?” Jack’s question was aimed at her.

  “Uh…” She’d only seen Rehoboth Beach in Delaware. “It’s rockier.” She turned to Red. “What do you think?”

  He shrugged. “Much colder.”

  Jack chuckled, gaze on Harper again. “I’ve only ever been to beaches in New England.”

  Harper swallowed a bite of ice cream. She didn’t have much information to compare. But if she were Gramps’s granddaughter… “We didn’t go to the beach a lot.”

  “We didn’t go to the beach a lot when I was a kid, either,” Jack said. “Our vacations were usually in the mountains.”

  She focused on her ice cream, had to keep quiet. Keep all her secrets. If she started talking, they’d slip out.

  Gramps wiped a dribble of ice cream off his chin. “What did you do in the mountains?”

  “In the winter,” Jack said, “we skied. You guys ski?”

  Harper said, “No,” at the same time Gramps said, “Used to.”

  Jack looked between them again, focused on Harper. “You should give it a try. I love it. What kinds of vacations did you go on?”

  She thought of their summers spent in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. “We used to camp near a lake. We’d go swimming and boating. Sometimes, my parents rented jet skis.” She loved the speed, the feel of the spray on her skin, the feeling of weightlessness when she got thrown off. Nutfield reminded her of that little lake town.

  “I bet you’re a boss on a jet ski,” Jack said.

  She nodded. “Pretty much.”

  He smiled and turned back to Gramps. “In the summer, we’d rent a place on a lake. My sisters and my mom would sleep in, shop, swim, and work on their tans.”

  “You?” Gramps asked.

  “Dad and I would go hunting,” Jack said.

  “Hunting.” Gramps grunted. “Never could stand it, sitting there in the freezing cold, staring at empty woods.”

  “I was up for doing whatever Dad wanted. And hunting was the only time he relaxed.”

  Gramps said, “Good guy, your dad?”

  “The best.” Jack worked on his cone, then glanced at her.

  “So,” she said to steer him away from questions about her past. “Besides hunting, what else did you and your dad do together?”

  Jack’s chuckle seemed filled with memories. “My dad worked a lot. He was the kind of guy who could never keep still.”

  “Kind of like you?” She’d observed that same boundless energy in Jack.

  “Huh.” Jack’s gaze went to the ceiling before it settled on her. “You think?”

  “Based on what I know of you.”

  He nodded slowly, seemed to be letting the idea settle. “Nobody I’d rather be compared to than my dad.” He licked his ice cream.

  She said, “You were about to tell us—”

  “Right. So he worked a lot. We didn’t see him much during the week. On the weekends, he was always doing something. The house we lived in was old, and Dad was forever fixing it up. Refinishing the hardwood, replacing tile, repairing plumbing. He could do everything. Install new light fixture
s, build furniture, hang drywall. When I was in middle school, he built an addition to the house.”

  “Guy like that,” Gramps said, “worth his weight in gold.”

  Jack aimed what was left of his ice cream cone toward Gramps. “You said it. And not just because he’s handy. He wasn’t a Christian back then, but he raised us right. When he did become a Christian, most of the family went right along with him.”

  A frown crossed his face like a shifting shadow, gone almost before she’d seen it. She suspected it had something to do with that remark—most of the family. Jack recovered before she could ask. “Anyway,” he said, “I used to follow Dad around, and he’d teach me what he was doing. Sometimes, it would be so boring sitting there watching him work, but I loved being with him. And sometimes, Dad would realize how bored I was and stop for no reason except just because, and he’d take me for ice cream.”

  “Good memories,” Gramps said.

  Harper thought of her own father, of the times they’d spent together. She hadn’t appreciated him when she was a kid. He was a good man, but she’d been too busy with her friends and social life and dreams to value her own father. Maybe if she’d shadowed him, everything would have been different.

  They finished their ice cream. Gramps set down his dirty napkin and nodded toward the jetty. “Folks walking on that.”

  “You want to go?” Jack asked.

  Harper gave him a look intended to say, With his walker? Are you nuts?

  But Gramps only chuckled. “I wouldn’t make it up the first steps. But you two should go.”

  Harper said, “I’m okay.”

  “We wouldn’t want to abandon you,” Jack added.

  Gramps looked back and forth between them, his sharp eyes missing nothing. “You two think I’m too old, too feeble, to sit here by myself a few minutes?”

  “Of course not,” Harper said.

  Jack focused on her. “He’s trying to goad us into taking a walk.”

  Gramps glared at her. “I promise I won’t wander off or break a hip while you’re gone.”

  She gathered the trash from the table. “I’m really not comfortable—”

  “Ten minutes alone, girl,” Gramps said. “Ten minutes to stare out at the sea and remember my Bebe. She’d have loved it here.” He inhaled a long breath, shook his head, and blew it out. “Is that too much to ask?”