She scrabbled the air with frantic hands. “It’s over, finished, just stirred up by this shit with Chris, but please forget what I said. You don’t want to know. Trust me. You’re better off if you don’t.”
She was right about that. Hadn’t Michael Shanahan already asked me about her? The less I knew, the more innocent I remained.
Of course, I knew now that she’d had relationships with the four men whose accounts were hacked, that they all looked like her ex-husband. I knew now that she had an ex-husband. And here I was, basically helping her hide behind a new head of hair.
That said, violence was something else. I couldn’t shake the idea. Edward had never been violent—had never come close to being violent—not once, in all the dark days that had followed Lily’s death.
Considering that, I felt more kindly toward him.
So when he wrote, Can Andrew Russ handle major renovations? I waited only until I finished cutting Grace’s hair to write, Yes. He’s new, smart, state-of-the-art.
I was midway through my eleven o’clock when he wrote, Landscaping? Trees? Moldy basement? Bats in the attic?
Why did you buy that house? I returned when my client asked for a minute to answer a text of her own. The woman in question had just turned sixty-five, hence the lunch in her honor, and she looked so like my mother that I spent extra time with her makeup.
Actually, she didn’t look anything like my mother. The only thing the same was their age.
But I spared nothing—used only my newest products, layered luminous foundation over tinted moisturizer over multiple concealers. I did her eyes in the softest navies and grays, and her cheeks with a dash of peach. Mascara? Only enough to delineate the lashes.
She called me a genius.
I didn’t feel it—should have known better than to encourage conversation with Edward—when I went out to get my next client and he waylaid me in the corridor. He had clearly been to that moldy house, since he had showered and put on clean jeans. He answered my question in a Spa whisper. “I needed a place to stay, and it was for sale.”
Continuing toward the lounge, I whispered back, “You could have stayed at the Inn. It has a Presidential Suite—Bridal Suite—Honeymoon Suite—whatever you call it this week.”
Edward kept pace. “I don’t want the owner’s suite at the Inn. I want a house. This one’s a winner. It just needs a little work.”
“A little? Is that what your text was about?”
“Okay, a lot, but I got the place dirt cheap, so the ROI will be good.”
I stopped walking before we were visible to others. Edward would attract notice. He was that striking.
Quietly, I said, “Andrew Russ can coordinate everything. He’s a great guy.”
“You know him well?”
“He did my kitchen and bathroom. I’ve done his wife’s makeup.” I moved past him. “Sorry, but I have a client.”
I spotted her the instant I was out in the open, and broke into a heartfelt smile. I knew this client. She was my absolute favorite. The appointment had been booked in her mother’s all-too-common surname, Smith, rather than her family name, Kalmbach, so I hadn’t made the connection. Seeing her in the lounge gave me an immediate lift. It helped that Edward disappeared, but I would have given her a huge hug regardless.
A referral from Joe Hellinger, fourteen-year-old Madelyn Kalmbach had been born with a port wine stain covering half of her face. She’d had laser treatments since toddlerhood, and the stain was greatly faded from what I had seen in early photos. What remained of it were stubborn areas that had either resisted treatment or that were too close to sensitive areas, like her eye, to allow it. Makeup made sense. That was where I came in.
The rapport between us had been instant. We joked that it was the Maddie-Maggie thing, but the truth had to do with my not being one of her parents. Understandably, they saw her as a child to be sheltered from a cruel world. Had they known some of the things her schoolmates said, they would have gone to school officials to complain and embarrassed her to death. She knew I wouldn’t do that. So, while her mother either had a manicure or took a yoga class or walked into town to shop, she told me which girls excluded her and which did not, what they said, what they posted, and where. She told me which boys could look at her and which would not, and she shared her fear that the one she had a crush on would never see past the stain.
For me, it wasn’t about hiding splotches of red. Once I got to know Maddie, I barely saw them, which I freely told her. But she knew they were there, which was all that mattered. I showed her how to shade them, how to draw attention away from them by highlighting her eyes. I had done her makeup prior to a party or two. Today, she was having pictures taken for her middle-school yearbook. While we waited for her mother to pick her up, I brushed her hair, braided one side at the temple and clipped it several inches back, used a curling iron on the rest.
We were both pleased with ourselves by the time she left.
And there was Liam at Reception, chatting it up with Joyce, whose wave for me to join them was far too enthusiastic.
“Your brother,” she said, beaming. “I’m so glad he’s here.”
I was not. Right there, with Joyce as witness, Liam begged, positively begged me to help him pick clothes that he would pay for, he claimed, and how could I say no? I still didn’t want him working for Edward. But what I wanted seemed not to matter. Liam was here. He had driven here in his own car, newly towed back onto my road. And if he didn’t buy appropriately warm and weather-resistant clothes, he would catch his death of cold—which was totally a Mom thought. Anyone in his right mind knew that colds came from germs, not weather. But his clothes were wrong any way you looked at it. Advising him in this was the least I could do.
Not to mention that Joyce would have had my head if I refused.
So off we went, Liam and I, and naturally, with someone as needy as Liam, it didn’t stop at clothes. He wanted a tour of the town, and though I pointed out apartments for rent over the stores on Lincoln, he was more interested in the shops themselves. When I pointed out available rentals in a condo community near the town line, he was more interested in the two eateries there. When I pulled off the road onto the drive of a small inn that I knew rented rooms by the month and, in fact, had a VACANCY sign prominently displayed, he was totally clueless.
“Okay, so, what is the appeal here?” he asked. “Do they serve anything other than breakfast?”
My phone dinged then. Not knowing how to deal with his denseness, since the message I was trying to send seemed crystal clear to me, I read Edward’s text. Who is Nina Evans?
Town Manager, I replied and sent it off. I didn’t ask why he wanted to know. Encouraging him only invited more, and I wasn’t his wife—or his girlfriend, his facilitator, his interior designer—certainly wasn’t the only one in town with the names of wildlife exterminators.
I didn’t need a man in my life. Given the pain of the past, I sure didn’t want this one.
Well, I did. Physically. Now, then, always—picturing how Edward Cooper had looked earlier at the Spa—he was something to behold. I wasn’t sure what to do with that. But there it was.
“Jeez, who’s at the other end of that text?” my brother asked.
My head flew up. “No one. Why?”
“The look on your face…”
“What?”
“Guilty. No. Hungry.”
Says the chef who wants everyone hungry all the time, I might have said, misinterpreting the word just to get him off my back, but it wasn’t worth the effort. He couldn’t get into my phone. He couldn’t see who I was texting. For all he knew, I was dating someone. Let him chew on that a while.
Dropping the phone in my purse, I murmured, “Yeah, right,” and looked at the Inn. It was modest in amenities and, no, didn’t serve anything other than breakfast, but it was high on charm. The owners were good people. I knew them. This was my turf.
“Nope,” I said. “Not hungry. Not me.”
“Are you hungry?”
It was Edward’s voice, of course. After seeing his number on my cell, I vowed not to answer, but it was a losing battle. By the third vibration, a progression of older, darker emotions had given way to the image of tears in his eyes, and I just couldn’t … not.
Still, I was wary. I held the phone to my ear, waiting for him to say more.
“Mackenzie?”
Quietly, I said, “There’s no one by that name here.” Propping the phone between shoulder and ear in a private show of nonchalance, I capped a bottle of foundation and returned it to its shelf.
“Maggie,” he said solemnly. “I’m just not used to that.”
“Fair’s fair. I’m not used to hearing your voice.”
“Have you had lunch?”
I sealed a tube of mascara and returned that to its place. “I promised Joyce I’d cover for her at the desk. She has a doctor’s appointment at two.”
“It’s only one now. Have you eaten?”
Collecting brushes, I slid them into disinfecting solution. “I’ve been with clients since eleven. The last one just left. But you know that.” He was my boss. My schedule had to be right there on his screen.
“No. I don’t. I decided not to spy.”
I sputtered a dry laugh. “Isn’t it a little late? You already have my address and phone number, and, okay, maybe you got that from our lawyer or from Liam, but I’m betting you’ve also been through my file. And if you pulled up the Spa schedule to compare today’s bookings to a typical Monday before the scandal—which I’m sure you did, because that’s the kind of info you’d want—my schedule is already on a screen in your mind. You have a photographic memory, Edward. Don’t forget, I know you.”
“You’re the only one who does,” he said without correcting the name. “That’s why I’m calling. I have lunch here on my desk—Caesar salad for you, tuna sandwich for me.”
Caesar salad for you, tuna sandwich for me. I tried to picture it, but all I could see was the risk. “You had your assistant bring lunch for two to your office, and you didn’t think it would attract attention?”
“I got these myself at Rasher and Yolk. I didn’t realize they were open ’til two,” he said, sounding pleased, “but don’t worry, they don’t know who I am. My office is on the second floor of the Inn, so no one at the front desk will see. My assistant is gone for the afternoon, there’s no one else around, and if someone knocks on the door, you can hide in the bathroom.”
That distracted me. “You have your own bathroom?”
“It came with the office. You’ve never been up here? You have to see it. I actually could use your advice on the, um”—he cleared his throat—“décor.”
Pulling the lidded trash bin from under my makeup counter, I swept in used mascara wands, Q-tips, and sponges. These things were more real to my life than this voice from the past. “Oh, Edward.” I sighed. “What’s the point?”
“Eating lunch. You haven’t eaten, I know you haven’t, and you’re right, I did see you had a free hour, but I didn’t go looking for it, I swear I didn’t. It just kind of popped up.”
I might have laughed again, now for old times’ sake, because Edward could be sweet when he was earnest. But I honestly, truly, completely wasn’t in the market for heartache. “What’s the point of our being together?”
“You said you didn’t know the man I’ve become. Here’s your chance.”
“Chance to relive a past?”
“Chance to live a future.”
“I can’t keep the past in the past, when it comes to you.”
“Well, you sure as hell won’t ever move on, if you don’t get over that.”
I should have been angry. But he was right. My therapist had said something similar. And it was common sense. The more I let the present unfold, the more the past would find its place. I just hadn’t expected Edward to be in the picture. If he was staying in Devon, I couldn’t ignore him. I couldn’t fear seeing him everywhere I went. I had to face him.
And yeah, I was a little curious about that bathroom.
But then he sealed it with a bald, “Okay, it’s me, I’m the one who needs to bridge past and present. You’ve never been in this office. You’ve never told me about your work or about the pottery studio or about Devon. Honestly?” he said with an element of pleading, “I feel lost. Okay, I know I just got here. I have to pay my dues. But people stare at me like I’m an alien.” He paused, pleaded, “Lunch? Here? Please?”
* * *
It didn’t take long to walk from the Spa into the body of the Inn and up the nearest stairwell to the second floor. I had to fudge my way from there, making one wrong turn that took me down a corridor of guest suites before heading in the other direction and spotting the glass double doors. They were frosted with a handsome pattern of horizontal bars, the name of the Inn, and a discreet BUSINESS OFFICE marking that was obvious enough to steer away even a tipsy guest. It would be locked at night, of course. And now?
There was still time to turn back. I didn’t have to do this.
But he was right about layering new memories on the old. His needing it, too, helped. And then there were Mom-isms marching along to the beat of my feet, like For old times’ sake and Once and done.
After knocking softly, I carefully lowered the brass lever and pushed. I slipped inside before anyone could enter the corridor behind me, and closed the door.
Edward was just coming from the inner room that had to be his office, but I was already looking around in dismay. The walls were maroon, though only small strips of it could be seen past a world of Currier and Ives. Large, small, etchings, oils—each one was beautiful but a throwback to an early era. Same with the carpets underfoot, which were Oriental and worn, and with the conference room, whose long table and dozen chairs were classic. “Chippendale.”
“None other. It’s a little much for me. Take it in, though. The best is yet to come.”
I followed him to his office. The walls here weren’t maroon but dark-paneled wood bearing oils with a fox-hunting theme. Names like Turner and Kilburne came to mind, but the claustrophobic feel of the room quickly squeezed them out.
“Well,” I said, “they do say something about the founder of the Inn.” None were Edward’s style—or mine—but they were textured and rich. I approached a large one. “These have to be originals.”
“Yup.”
“Sell a few, and you’d have money enough to buy tablets for every employee and then some.”
“Can’t sell. It’s part of the contract that’s passed from owner to owner, but that doesn’t mean I have to look at them. I may turn some of the larger guest rooms into theme suites and hang them there.”
“Isn’t there a theft risk?” Some of the pieces were small enough to fit into luggage.
“Funny you ask,” he said, scratching the back of his head in a sheepish way. “The computers may have lacked security, but the art has always been sensor-protected. Everything that we display is for sale—except the ones in this office,” he tacked on with resignation. “Obviously.”
My gaze slid to the desk. It, too, was of an age and had the same heavy look as the rest of the room. The fact that its work surface held a large iMac, a smaller laptop, and overlapping piles of papers that had to be in some sort of order, though I couldn’t see what, brought it firmly into the present.
An arm on my shoulder turned me away. “Don’t look there. It’s depressing.”
“Confused,” I blurted without quite knowing if I meant the desk, the whole office, or his touching me.
“Isn’t that a statement,” he muttered and steered me to the far end of the room. It was anchored by a large leather sofa, a pair of tartan club chairs, and a low coffee table, on one end of which were our lunches. Caesar salad for you, tuna sandwich for me. Some things never changed.
Escaping his warmth, I sank into one of the club chairs. My hand settled on its chubby arm, finger checking out the fade
d plaid.
“Yup,” Edward said before I could. “It’s seen better days.” He slid the salad toward me, along with a plastic sleeve of utensils. “The last few owners were rarely here. Once they realized the foxes had to stay, they didn’t care to redo the rest.”
“Will you?” I asked and opened the lid of my salad. Taking a fork from the sleeve, I speared a piece of chicken. He wasn’t eating yet, wasn’t even seated. Manners dictated that I wait. But this wasn’t a date. It was a work lunch. Eating first was my statement.
He didn’t answer. Wondering if he planned to, I looked at him. It was the first time I had, and intentionally so. Sweater, slacks, loafers—he was amazing. I was getting used to the longer hair and the beard, which was just dense enough to lift it above scruff. Neither hurt.
“I’m not sure,” he said, seeming surprisingly ambivalent. The Edward I had known preferred his office shiny and sleek. He was a clean, chrome, and organized guy, or used to be. But that was why I was here, wasn’t it—to put a new face on the old one so that I’d be less threatened each time I saw him?
“Lots of papers,” I said, indicating the desk with my chin. “Is there an order to those?”
He snorted a quiet, “I wish.”
“What are they?”
“Reports on more departments than you’d think existed, contracts with more vendors than you’d think needed contracts—food, laundry, soap, gifts, pool personnel, pool upkeep, grounds upkeep, roof upkeep, linen replacement, insurance policies for fire, theft, weather damage, deranged-person damage—”
“Seriously?”
“It’s an issue,” he said. I heard defensiveness in the three words, but resignation—reality—quickly followed. “Someone breezes through the front door and opens fire in the lobby with a semiautomatic, and you got tragedy compounded by litigation, but hell, what’re we supposed to do, arm the bellboys?” Standing there with his hands on his hips and his eyes on that cluttered desk, he looked suddenly weary. “There are times…” he began, but his voice trailed off. He chafed his beard with his knuckles.
“What?”
“Nah. Nothing.” He sat on the sofa.
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