A rap on the window ended her reverie. Gordon stood on the other side, holding a file drawer. She opened the sliding glass door and joined him in the living room.
“There’s a crack in the ceiling of the master bedroom,” he said. “Did you make it?”
She explained what had happened.
“What were you doing in the attic? Didn’t Brandy tell you there’s no proper flooring?” Gordon set the file drawer down on the coffee table with a thud.
“I was looking for the tapes your wife made of Emily Goodale’s recollections.”
Gordon frowned. “What do you want with them?”
“I’m trying to find out about my ancestors. They lived in New Nottingham a long time ago. I hope the tapes will give me more information.”
“Have you tried Emily?”
“Yes, but she hasn’t been that helpful.”
“I’m not surprised. The old bat’s as ornery as the rest of the tribe.”
Old bat!? Gordon didn’t seem to have a nice word to say about anyone here. Still, the last part of his remark intrigued her. “What tribe?”
“The Barkers.”
If Gordon had suddenly lobbed a grenade at her, she couldn’t have been more surprised. “Emily’s a Barker? How do you know?”
“My wife told me. She and Emily were great friends.”
“I thought Emily was a Judd. That’s what it says in her recollections.”
“She’s related to the Barkers somehow. Most of the old families are related to one another. It’s a very inbred population. Surely, you’ve noticed these people aren’t the brightest—”
Before he could finish the slur, she cut him off. “If you come across those tapes in the attic, would you let me know?”
“I’ve got enough to do without searching for a bunch of stupid tapes,” Gordon retorted. As he bent to pick up the file drawer, he noticed a gray prison-stripe of dust across his polo shirt. “Sh—sugar! Now I’ll have to take this to the cleaner’s. I didn’t realize how filthy that drawer is. Get me a damp cloth.”
“There’s a bag full of rags in the cabinet under the kitchen sink.”
Let him take care of it himself. She wasn’t his maid. If he’d been a real lion, Gordon might have growled at her. Instead, he stalked to the kitchen with an irritated switch of his imaginary tail.
*****
“Have you seen him? Has he been to the house yet?” Emily asked excitedly, when Kathryn helped her into her chair at the kitchen table the following afternoon. She told Emily Gordon had come to get some things from the attic.
“What things? Did you see what he took?”
“Just some boxes of slides.”
“Nothing else?”
“Not that I noticed.”
“If he comes again, keep an eye out and tell me what he takes.”
“Why are you so interested?”
Ignoring the question, Emily asked, “Did he say why he’s come back?”
“He mentioned that a gallery in the city wants to have an exhibit of his work.”
“A likely story!” Emily’s blue eyes blazed.
“He is a professional photographer, so wouldn’t a gallery want to exhibit his work?”
“Gordon’s not a professional anything. He’s a playboy with expensive hobbies. Did he tell you anything else about his plans while he’s here?”
“Only that he’s staying with friends in the area and will need to come to the house from time to time.”
“Did he mention anyone in town?”
Kathryn hesitated, reluctant to reveal how Gordon had badmouthed both Earl and Emily herself. The old woman’s eyes drilled into her. “Earl was there so . . .”
“He called Earl ‘trash’ behind his back, didn’t he? Gordon’s always hated Earl. And not just because Earl took up with Diana. No. Gordon hates Earl because for all his talk about Earl being trash, he knows Earl’s a thousand times the man he is. Earl’s worked hard to support Millie and the kids, while Gordon’s nothing but a parasite living off his dead wife’s money.”
“Emily!”
“I believe in calling a spade a spade,” Emily said primly. “Did Gordon say anything about me?”
“Just that you and Diana were good friends,” she fibbed.
“Sure he didn’t call me an ‘old bat’?”
“Why ask questions when you already know the answers? Gordon did say something that surprised me, though.”
“What?”
“He said you were a Barker.”
“So?”
“It doesn’t say that in your recollections.”
“Not in the beginning, but later on it does.”
“The beginning’s all I have. The later pages were ruined when the basement of the historical society flooded.”
“Listen to the tapes then.”
“Emily, as I’ve told you many times, I don’t have the tapes.”
“Misplaced them, eh? Well, they’ll turn up.”
“Can’t you just explain to me how you’re a Barker?”
“It’s a long story. I’ll never finish my dinner if I tell you now. Besides, you haven’t told me if you’ve been to Marguerite’s other grave yet.”
Kathryn described the visit to the grave, including Earl’s rescue of her from the rattler.
“Didn’t I say you’d be safe with him? It’s the other one you’ve got to watch out for.”
“Who?”
“Gordon. You keep your eyes and ears wide open when he’s around. I want to know everything he says and does while he’s at the house.”
Kathryn stared at Emily, amazed. “You want me to spy on him?”
“That’s right.”
“Why? Do you think he’s up to something?”
“Just do it.”
Kathryn sighed. Emily was as exasperating as ever. Still, she’d never dream of calling her an old bat. To her surprise, she realized she’d actually grown fond of the old woman. So why not humor her? “I guess I can do that while I’m still here.”
“You’re not going away, are you?”
“Only for a few days.” Alan’s welcome-home party for Sophie was on Friday, and she figured she’d stay the weekend.
“When?”
“Friday through Sunday.”
“You can’t leave while Gordon’s here. And Friday’s when we’re having the benefit for Garth. You should come. That poor, blind boy needs all the support he can get.”
“Sorry, I have another commitment.”
“Fiddlesticks! You stay here and come to the benefit.”
Kathryn rolled her eyes. Fond as she now was of Emily, there were limits to what she was willing to do for her, especially when she’d already told Alan she’d come to Sophie’s party.
Chapter 32
At the post office that same afternoon, Kathryn was surprised to find her mail torn and covered with dirt. She showed Millie the damaged mail. “What’s with this?”
Millie shrugged. “Must’ve fallen off the truck. It happens sometimes.”
She didn’t seem particularly concerned, and Kathryn noticed Millie didn’t give her a friendly smile as usual. She decided not to take it personally. Perhaps Millie was having a bad day. “Well, I hope it doesn’t happen again. I’m expecting an important package, and I’d hate to have it ruined.”
“Oh?” Millie looked at her inquiringly.
Kathryn told her about the old-fashioned doll with a porcelain head and real hair she’d special-ordered as a gift for Sophie. She hoped it would arrive in time for the little girl’s welcome home party on Friday.
“If you’re going to Boston for a party, then you won’t be coming to the benefit?”
“No. I’m planning to donate an item to the auction, though. Okay if I leave it with you?”
“Fine.” Millie’s face broke into a smile. “I’ll speak to the driver who delivers the mail and tell him to be more careful. Want me to telephone when your package arrives?”
“I’d appreciate that.”
*****
On her way back to the Farley house, Kathryn had to swerve aside to avoid Gordon as he roared past. Just like him to hog the road, she thought with a flash of annoyance. Yet when she noticed the red truck parked next to the house, her heart leaped. Earl was back. When he hadn’t shown up to finish the work on the driveway this morning, she’d wondered if he were staying away to spite Gordon, or to avoid her. Maybe she was being paranoid, but she couldn’t help feeling that after the ugly disclosures about her past, he’d want to keep his distance.
On closer inspection, she realized the truck wasn’t his. It belonged to the man who had come to repair the crack in the bedroom ceiling. The repairman was just folding up his ladder when she went into the bedroom. “Won’t have to worry about the ceiling falling on you now.” He indicated strips of plaster-coated tape in the place where the crack had been.
“Thanks for fixing it. You must have seen Gordon Farley while you were here.”
“Yup. Said he needed to get some things from the attic and promised to be careful. Didn’t want him crashing down on me.”
Remembering her promise to Emily, Kathryn asked, “Did you happen to notice what he took from there?”
“Too busy, but I sure heard ’im rummaging around up there.”
Rummaging for what: more slides or something else? After the repairman had gone, she went up to have a look. From the top of the ladder, she surveyed the boxes and file drawers. They had obviously been rifled since her previous visit. Without an inventory of the attic’s contents, she couldn’t tell what had been taken, however. She did notice that Diana’s defaced wedding picture wasn’t where she’d left it. Maybe Gordon had removed it. He must have seen it when he’d first gone up to the attic, yet he hadn’t mentioned it. Strange.
Although the ceiling was fixed, she had the uncomfortable feeling, lying in bed that night, that something was about to come crashing down.
*****
Millie telephoned on Thursday to say Kathryn’s package had arrived in good condition. “Have a nice trip,” she said when Kathryn went in to get it.
“Thanks. I hope you raise lots of money at the benefit.” Kathryn gave Millie her contribution to the raffle, a lavishly illustrated coffee-table-book catalog of an exhibit of Civil War photographs and prints she’d curated for the Lyceum.
Now that she had Sophie’s present, she could leave for Boston today instead of tomorrow, and arrive in time to help Alan with the preparations for the party. Yet, as she packed her bag, she discovered she was in no hurry. Earl’s absence gnawed at her. He knew things about her no one else did, and intimacy seemed to have bred contempt. Or had it? She hated not knowing how things stood between them.
The light had begun to fade when she heard a rumble on the road. She raced to the front window in time to see Earl’s truck pull into the parking area, turn around, and head back out the driveway, just like it had the day she moved in. Then, his arrival and immediate departure had worried her. Now, it hurt her more than she cared to admit.
Listening intently, she heard no further sounds of the departing truck, only silence. Maybe he hadn’t left. She went out to investigate.
Rounding a bend in the driveway, she saw Earl spreading gravel from a small mound with a shovel. He stopped and looked at her, his face shadowy in the dim light.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” she blurted.
“Why not? I’ve got a job to finish.”
“Yes, but I thought . . .”
“What?”
“That you’d wait until I was gone.”
“Why?”
“Because of Sunday.” What an effort those three words cost her.
He looked away, worrying a piece of gravel with the toe of his boot.
Finally, he said, “Sunday was pretty damn intense. First with you, then with Gordon showing up out of the blue. It stirred up a lot of stuff. I needed time to let things settle, get them sorted out.”
“You stayed away on purpose, then?”
“Yes. But why should my comings and goings matter to you? You’re going back to Boston, aren’t you?”
News traveled fast on the village grapevine. “Only for a few days. My friend Alan’s having a welcome-home-from-the-hospital party for his daughter.”
He worried the gravel more. “So, tell me, is Alan your kane?”
“What?”
“Your kane, your man.”
The question caught her off guard. “Well, I—I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” he repeated incredulously.
“We’ve only been seeing each other a few months. That’s not long enough to—” She broke off. How could she expect him to understand her relationship with Alan when he’d plunged willy-nilly into a wild love affair?
“No?” he challenged.
His presumption irked her. “Speak for yourself.”
“Huh?”
“Is Brandy your wahine?” She couldn’t believe her boldness.
The shovel he was holding clattered to the ground. “My what?”
“Your wahine, your woman. Your brother said you and Brandy were an item.”
“He did, eh? That was a long time ago. Right after Diana died. I went kind of crazy. Brandy, too, with grief for her son. We both realized pretty fast it was a mistake, and we quit. Since then I’ve been solo.”
“There’s no lady friend who doesn’t like to be kept waiting?” Again, her boldness astonished her.
“That was just talk.” He picked up the shovel. “I’d better finish while it’s still light.”
She started back toward the house. She hadn’t gone far when she heard him murmur, “Star.”
She scanned the sky for the evening star without seeing it. “Where?”
“I meant you.”
“Me? I thought it was Starstruck.”
“Star suits you better.”
“Star,” she repeated, surprised to find that she, who usually hated nicknames, actually liked this one.
He took out a small object from the pocket of his jeans. “I almost forgot to give you this. Catch!”
He lobbed the object into the air. It rose with the long, slow arc of a fly ball. A last, slanting ray of sunlight caught the metallic underside, making it shine briefly, before it began its descent into her outstretched hands. Her fingers closed around the hair clip he’d removed after it had gotten tangled in the chain of his St. Christopher medal. The clip was warm from being in his pocket, lodged against his hipbone, moving when he moved.
“Thanks. I washed your bandanna. Do you want it now?”
“No rush. You can give it to me another time.”
Back at the house, she placed the red square on the dresser top in readiness for that time.
Chapter 33
On Friday afternoon, when Kathryn arrived at Alan’s home in Lexington, Massachusetts, the house was filled with friends and neighbors, including a tall redhead she’d never met.
“I’m Cindy Lockhart.” The woman extended her free hand. In the other, she held a pot with an African violet.
“Kathryn Stinson.”
“Ah. You’re the lady who brought the dirt.”
“Dirt?”
“The dirt from the country that Alan—Mr. Marquette—wanted in Sophie’s hospital room.”
That dirt. With the white stag’s hoof print. Even now, the soil seemed to give off a faintly musky smell.
“You must be the person who put it in a pot.”
“That’s right.” Cindy beamed. “Sophie’s one of my favorite patients. I had to swap shifts with another nurse to come.
I wouldn’t miss her homecoming party for anything. I think they’re here now.” She put the pot on a table in the hall and hurried to the front door just as Alan walked in with Sophie in his arms. With her pale, drawn face and wide, staring eyes, the little girl looked even more like a lost lamb, except now she was returning to the fold, safe in her father’s arms. The way she’d felt in Earl’s arms when he carried her down the mountain. But why think about that now?
Alan put down Sophie and Nurse Cindy gave her a big hug. “I’m so glad you’re well and back home again,” Kathryn said, patting the top of Sophie’s curly head.
“Thank you, Kathryn.” The girl smiled wanly up at her.
The guests gathered in the living room, where Sophie sat on the couch with Alan and Kathryn on either side and opened her presents. Afterward, they adjourned to the dining room. Alan switched off the light and his housekeeper emerged from the kitchen with a big chocolate “welcome home” cake for Sophie, lit with a single candle. He hoisted Sophie up so she was level with the cake. “I know it’s not your birthday, sweetie, but I thought you should have a candle to blow out and make a wish on.”
Make a wish. That was what people did when they blew out candles. Or glimpsed the first star in the evening sky. But yesterday, Earl hadn’t been talking about a real star. Star suits you better.
A popping noise, and something came flying at her. She caught it, half disappointed to discover it wasn’t her hair clip, but the champagne cork. Alan poured bubbly for the grown-ups while his housekeeper poured juice and soda for the children. “I’m glad you’re here,” Alan said as he handed her a glass. Then, moving closer, he whispered, “And I’m looking forward to later when we can be alone.”
“Sophie’s waiting for you to cut her cake,” the housekeeper told Alan. “She wants the piece with that big red rose and her name on it.”
“I’ll be right back.” Kathryn barely heard Alan. Her mind drifted to the Berkshires where preparations for another party were underway: the benefit for Garth Emily had insisted she attend. That poor, blind boy needs all the support he can get. She had no doubt Millie would see to it that Garth got plenty of support. Still, if she hadn’t had a prior commitment, she probably would have gone to the benefit. In the short time she’d lived in the village, she’d begun to feel less of an outsider and more a part of the community. Attending the benefit would have been a way of showing she wasn’t just there to take but to give back as well. Pity she couldn’t be two places at once.
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