A Charmed Place

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  Maddie was the one who needed soothing. The trauma was a throwback for her, too; Hawke knew that all too well. To distract her, he said, "You remember Professor Woodbine's theory about 'Forms with Power'? Well, by cracky, I think he's on to something there. Damned if that cone shape didn't protect me from—as you keep pointing out—an agonizing, hideous death. Shoo, what if I had been switching from news to a 'Gilligan's Island' rerun? Then what?"

  "Very funny," she said, whacking him in the chest.

  He pretended to fall into a fit of coughing again, which sent her into a spasm of concern until he wrapped his arms around her and held her close, on the beach, in the light, in his pajamas, in front of the departing fire department and an assortment of town busybodies, including Trixie Roiters—there with her trusty Canon to record it all for posterity—as well as the Countess, passing through with her two black Scotties for an update on the latest village scandal.

  The lightkeeper's house, fortunately, came through its ordeal of fire and rain with minimal damage. The rain had beat back the blaze until the firefighters could finish the job. A rafter would need to be sistered, and some sheathing and shingles replaced. It could've been worse. It could've been a Betty or Fred or Virginia.

  "As for me, it's lucky I own nothing of value," Hawke told Maddie after a quick check through the house. "The TV's been zapped into oblivion, of course, and I can forget about having cold beer until the fridge gets fixed. The landlord's dryer was busted anyway, so that's no loss. My laptop was on its battery pack and should be okay—by the way, did you bring those disks?"

  "Gee, no, it must've slipped my mind," Maddie said with an incredulous look at him as she went from window to window, opening them to air out the house.

  It hadn't occurred to Hawke until then that the house really smelled. He took a deep whiff and said, "Is this place habitable?"

  "Not up here, for sure," she said, wrinkling her nose. She looked up at the plastered ceiling of his bedroom and added, "That looks ready to fall any time now."

  She was right; he was disheartened. "I was planning to insist that you move in with me," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I had a speech all ready."

  Her gaze went from the ceiling to him. When she was pleased, her eyes had a way of becoming more sparkly, somehow. They were shining now. The breeze lifted strands of her golden brown hair as she sat back on the low windowsill, bracing herself on it with her hands. Beautiful, he thought, aware of an old, familiar ache.

  She said with a wistful smile, "I have a teenage daughter."

  "I forgot. So help me God, for a while there, I forgot. I was on a high."

  "I know," she said softly. "Tell me your speech anyway."

  "Anyway?" He scraped his unshaved chin and realized that he must look like hell. She looked like an angel. How could he hope to approach her and lay his proposition at her feet?

  He compromised by not approaching her at all. He stayed where he was, planting his hands on his hips and his feet wide apart, while he stared at a knot in the pine plank floor. If he didn't look into her eyes ... if he didn't let himself get blinded by the integrity he saw there, the goodness that radiated from there ... maybe then he could make his case.

  "Somewhere between your basement and the thunderbolt," he began, "I realized that we hadn't set a date for the wedding. Now, the date can be as soon as the next plane that touches down in Vegas; that's fine with me. But it seems to me that you deserve more. We deserve more. We've waited so long ... we've loved so long. I want the world to know that you and I are going to be wed at last. I want you to wear a beautiful dress, and I want flowers everywhere, sweet-smelling roses and honeysuckle that remind me of you. I want us to draw up a guest list together and then keep adding names to it. I want a band! I can't believe I'm saying this, but I want a band."

  He risked glancing up at her—would she think he was bonkers?—but all he saw was a vision of what he held dear. She started to say something, but he held his hand palm out like a traffic cop and plowed on, unable to hope, unwilling not to.

  "And meanwhile, you're living in enemy territory," he said, grimacing at his own blunt choice of words. He tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice as he added, "and every night that I draw breath without you at my side is one night closer to oblivion. I'm afraid, Maddie," he confessed. "I'm afraid to be without you anymore."

  He compressed his lips into a stoic smile and said, "So that was my speech. It never occurred to me that you had to set a moral example for your kid." He snorted and added, "Can you tell that no one ever set one for me?"

  He had to stop himself from saying anything more. He was a loner by nature and by training, and he wasn't used to spilling his guts to anyone, even to her. Twenty years in the field had taught him to keep his own counsel. Twenty minutes with her, and he was babbling like a sinner on his deathbed.

  It wasn't a bad comparison.

  Maddie didn't know what to say. Her eyes were filled with sympathy—not quite the emotion he was trying for—as she came up to him and slipped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek to his chest. "We can elope," she offered in a poignant voice. "We'll bring our own honeysuckle."

  He shook his head. "Eloping is a good idea only for the ones who don't have to. For us it would feel too much like skulking. You deserve more," he said doggedly, rubbing his hands in an idle motion up and down her back. "I don't want us to sneak around in the shadows the way we did then. This time I want—"

  "A band. You're right," she said in a feistier voice. "So do I. We'll have a real celebration and we'll invite our friends and family, and whoever comes, comes. And in the meantime I'll sign Tracey up for pottery lessons and cake decorating and—I don't know—model shipbuilding. I'll figure out some way to get her out of the house under supervision so that I can come over here."

  He had a thought. "What about summer camp? Aren't you people big believers in it?"

  "Rosedale is our summer camp," she told him. "Or at least, it used to be."

  He nodded. "When I was a city kid—this is when I was seven or eight—I used to wish that someone like you would invite me to spend the weekend," he said, remembering how he'd hang out on the beach in Southie and dream.

  Maddie leaned back in his arms and said, "Well, I'm inviting you now. You don't have electricity or hot water or a phone or even a dry roof over your head. It's the only neighborly thing to do."

  He was definitely surprised by the offer. "I can afford a motel, you know."

  "As if you could find one, this time of year. No, you'll stay at Rosedale, at least until Tracey gets back. We'd do it for anyone else. And it sounds like Mr. Mendoza is counting on you to get the repairs arranged. Wasn't that the deal?"

  "That's what he said when I called. He won't be back from the Azores until the end of the month. Look, Maddie—I appreciate what you're trying to do, but ... what's the point? Old George would have a conniption."

  "Old George can go suck an egg!" she said, showing a flash of anger that was new. "Rosedale belongs to all of us! This has nothing to do with you and me and the past. This is about a fire and a neighbor who needs help. Period! Now pack a bag and come on."

  ****

  Hawke was able to convince Maddie to return to Rosedale ahead of him. He packed his duffle in a leisurely way, allowing her time to break the news to old George.

  Part of Hawke believed that her plan wasn't all bad. A fire in the neighborhood tended to bring out the best in people. He'd seen it happen more than once, neighbors rallying around the victims. On the other hand ... well, Hawke getting screwed by a fire. Could it get more poetic than that? George might just rub his hands in glee and let it go at that.

  Hawke locked the door, hiked the strap of his duffle over one shoulder, and struck out along the beach. He had no desire to drive; it was far too fine a morning. The thunderstorms had scrubbed the sky a new shade of blue and the sand was cool and clean. There wasn't a scrap of litter around from the town's party on the Fourth; the vol
unteer crews had done their job well.

  Considering the early hour, Hawke was surprised to see people already on the beach: two young mothers setting up with their toddlers; a family of four with chairs, multiple coolers, a playpen, and an umbrella; a couple with a blanket stripping down to their swimsuits. If you only had a week, he surmised, then you damn well had to make the most of it.

  It's what he wanted to do with what was left of his life: make the most of it. He was inexpressibly happy that Maddie felt the same way.

  The rest of the way to Rosedale, it was their future that he thought about, and not their past.

  That changed, once he drew near the picket-fenced cottage on Cranberry Lane. He saw George loading a smart leather suitcase into the trunk of his Acura, and Maddie hugging her attractive, pregnant sister-in-law on the brick walk in front of the house.

  Okay, I got two choices here. I can pass, or I can run the ball into the end zone.

  He opted for the touchdown. He walked up to the house, unhooked the latch in the knee-high gate of the picket fence, and, feeling oversized for all that charm, entered the diminutive garden that led to the cottage. He'd never approached through the front before; it made him feel less like a servant and more like ... like what?

  A Fuller brush man, damn it, he decided as he returned George's condescending stare.

  He tried hard to keep it civil. Apparently—he didn't see any cops around—they were going to allow him entry. He went up deliberately to Maddie's brother and held out his hand.

  "George, I appreciate this," he said evenly.

  Maddie's brother permitted himself a glance at Hawke's outstretched hand before he closed the trunk and said to his wife, "If you're ready."

  Not much progress on that front, Hawke could see. He shifted his duffle strap to a new position on his shoulder, as if he were a sailor on shore leave checking out a boarding house that might or might not have a ban on booze, and then went up to Maddie and Claire.

  "M'am," he said, nodding his good morning to the attractive blonde.

  Maddie jumped in and introduced them. Claire was as gracious as Maddie claimed she was, and about as neutral.

  "I'm so glad to meet you. I'm sorry we have to leave," she said, all with a perfectly straight face.

  Leave? Hell, it was an out-and-out evacuation! Hawke had no doubt that if he checked their bedroom, he'd find the drawers still open and hangers on the floor. They'd have hung around longer if he'd had leprosy.

  "Have a good trip," he told Claire with a jaunty look.

  Maddie stepped around them and went up to her brother with some last parting words, which Hawke couldn't hear. He did hear George mutter, "Do what you want. You won't be doing it for long."

  Chapter 23

  Maddie was far more jumpy than she'd ever thought possible, having Daniel Hawke as her guest. She wanted to prove that she really had acted out of kindness when she put Rosedale at his disposal. The only way to do that was not to be in the same room with him, and preferably, not on the same floor.

  So she laid out her thickest, softest towels in the upstairs bath and while Dan showered, she stayed downstairs making a big breakfast for him. When he sat down to eat, she disappeared into the living room to clear a space for him at the small desk there. When he sat down at the desk to call repairmen and contractors, she returned to the kitchen to wash the dishes. And when he came back into the kitchen and picked up a towel to dry the dishes, she went upstairs to strip the linens from Tracey's bed, where he would spend the night.

  "I have a question," he said from behind her as she plumped the pillows on her daughter's iron bed.

  Maddie jumped; she hadn't heard him approach. "Uh-huh?" she said, glancing at him over her shoulder as she worked.

  He was standing in the doorway with a book in his hand and an odd, pensive smile on his face. "Where are you keeping my candlesticks? In the closet with the oil portrait of the ugly aunt?"

  "Oh ... Dan, I gave them away," she admitted, more embarrassed than if he'd caught her stealing them instead. "I had to. They were exquisite," she added, as if that helped.

  His nod of enlightenment was mostly ironic. "Oh, okay, that explains it, then."

  "I know how precious they were," she told him as she gathered Tracey's old sheets into her arms. "I'm sure you went through every antique shop in London before you finally decided on them."

  "You know me much too well," he admitted, looking rueful about it.

  "But I couldn't keep them to use and enjoy ... or exchange them ... or even sell them. I couldn't take advantage of them in any way. You know? It wouldn't have been right."

  "So like you, Maddie," he said softly.

  She bowed her head and stared at one of the pink cabbage roses on the sheets. "I donated them—anonymously—to an auction benefit, and now I wish I hadn't. It would've been something we shared from our first life together."

  "I was thinking along those same lines," he said, but in a much more cheerful voice than hers.

  She looked up to see a sheepish grin on his face. For that single moment in time he was a student again, raw and intense and amazingly shy when it came to social niceties that she took so much for granted.

  He came into the room and laid a worn, utterly shabby book on top of the laundry that she held in her arms. The covers of the book were water-stained and warped, the gold-leafed title illegible. Puzzled, Maddie picked up the slender volume with her free hand and read the spine: Pre-Raphaelite Poetry: A Selection.

  For a brief second she drew a blank, and then she made the connection. "I used to read these aloud to you on the campus green!" she said, thrilled that he still remembered.

  Dan was pleased, too. She saw it in the half-smile on his lips and in the flush of emotion that settled over the high, chiseled bones of his cheeks as he watched her closely for her reaction.

  " 'Her eyes were deeper than the depth / Of waters stilled at even'," he quoted.

  "Rossetti!" she guessed at once. "Oh, Dan—"

  "Read the inscription," he told her.

  Nestling the book in the crumple of bedsheets still in her arms, she opened the cover and read:

  For Maddie.

  No other love,

  Dan.

  "Of course, like me, the book was in a lot better shape at the time," he explained with that same half-smile. "But we've been around the globe more than once since then."

  It was the gift of the book, ultimately, that did Maddie in. How could she treat Daniel Hawke like an ordinary house guest, even for a day, when he was the most un-ordinary man she'd ever known? She tried to say something, but an overflow of emotion rose up and drowned the words as they formed.

  She took a deep breath, forcing back every other thought but one: "I love you, Daniel Hawke. I do."

  He took the book from her and laid it gently on Tracey's pine dresser, then took the laundry and tossed it aside on the rag rug.

  With infinite, tender care, as if he were lifting a veil to a secret place, he slid his hand under Maddie's hair and held it away from her neck, kissing the warm skin underneath, making it warmer still. Maddie closed her eyes and let him have his way—let him kiss her neck; nibble her earlobe; test her resistance and find out for himself how lacking it was.

  "We haven't been ... in a bed together ... since my basement apartment," he murmured between soft tugs at her lower lip. "Don't you think ... it's time?"

  "I remember that bed," she whispered. "It was made of ... water."

  The waterbed leaked; it was an old one, left over from the hippy era. But on the concrete floor it hadn't mattered; Dan used to mop up the water now and then and top off the bed with a hose, and it would be good as new.

  "Will we have one again?" he asked her, slipping her pink shell up over her head and adding it to the laundry pile.

  She caught the hem of his polo shirt and pulled it over his torso. "They're supposed to be good for bad backs," she said gravely, "and general aches and pains."

  "Glad to
hear it," he answered with a grin as she tossed his shirt, "because I have a pretty aching hard-on right now."

  To prove it he caught her close, letting out a low chuckle, the same wonderful sound that had excited her as they sloshed around on the waterbed to the make-love beat of the Stones two decades before.

  In a sly voice, she said, "For now, I guess we're just going to have to make do. So-o—which bed do you want?" She slid the palms of her hands up his back in a sinuous motion. "Mine's the biggest."

  "This one's the closest."

  "Sounds good to m—" She stopped in the middle of the leisurely excursion over his back with her hands. Something new, something different had been built into the corded surface there. "Turn around," she said, curious about the odd grooves and patches she'd felt.

  The smile faded from his face, but he did as she commanded.

  Maddie sucked in her breath when she saw the scarred skin: a pale patch, obviously from a burn, that covered an area from the top of his right shoulder down over his wing. "Dan! How did this happen?" she cried, running her hand as tenderly over it as if the burn were new.

  He turned around to face her—or to turn his scar away from her—and said with a shrug, "I got a little too close to a burning oil well in Iraq."

  "Truly?"

  "Shh. Don't ask so many questions. Shhh. Just let me love you," he said, and his voice seemed suddenly more urgent than ever before.

  "But—"

  He stopped her with a kiss, a hard kiss that had his tongue seeking and probing hers until she thought, Yes, why do I ask so many questions? and let herself be carried away in the passion of his embrace. The scar was from the burn he'd suffered saving her father, obviously—the scar of a hero, whether or not he wanted to admit it.

  Her response became more fevered; she felt a rush of heat as he hooked his hands under her buttocks, pulling her close again.