by Meg Benjamin
“No, actually, I’m not. We separated a few months ago. The divorce was final a few days before I came to the harbor. I really meant to tell you and Mom about it. But then things got all…complicated.”
“What happened, Greta?” At least he no longer sounded pissed.
“Long story short—he cheated and I threw him out. Do you want more details than that?”
“Seriously? I can’t believe this. Why didn’t you say anything?”
She closed her eyes. This conversation had all been so much easier in her mind. “I couldn’t think of how to explain it. And I knew Mom would be upset. I was going to tell her when I got home, but then she was so happy about the wedding and everything…”
The wedding probably wasn’t the most politic thing to bring up right then, but maybe he was tired of people tiptoeing around the subject. She swallowed hard. “I should have told you both, I know. I was just sort of scared, I guess.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I get it. Hell, Greta.” He sighed. “I thought you were there to look after Mom.”
“Look after Mom? Why would Mom need to be looked after?” Her mother had always struck her as a kind of force of nature. The only time she’d ever seemed less than totally in charge had been after her father had died. Of course, that had been a pretty dark period for everybody.
“Why?” Josh sounded slightly confused for once. “Because of the wedding being off. I’m sure she’s upset.”
Of course, Josh would be the one to think about other people before he thought about himself. Unlike his little sister. But she didn’t think he was right about this particular crisis. “She’s not upset, Josh. She’s pissed. I saw her at that church. Trust me, the biggest thing we need to worry about with Mom right now is that she’ll tell off one of the town gossips or kick Bernice in the rear end. She’s not going to crumble under this. She’s stronger than you think.”
He sighed again. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Where are you, anyway?”
“I’m staying at a hotel down the road,” she said carefully. “They needed a cook and I needed a couple of days off.” Decision-free zone, bro.
“Goddammit, Greta,” he snapped. “Do I have to come and hunt you down too?”
“No, you do not. I’ll be back at the harbor by the end of the week.” She wondered if he could tell she was gritting her teeth. “And I’ll face up to whatever I have coming from Mom.”
“Fine. I won’t. But…” His tone softened. “Are you really okay? Are you sure you don’t want me to come and get you? Or head over to Boston and kick Ryan’s ass for you?”
Greta shook her head. “Tempting as that might once have been, no. I’m fine, bro. Honest. How about you?”
“Okay. Yeah, I’m okay too.”
She frowned slightly. Had anybody even checked to see if Josh was actually okay, rather than just saying he was? “Are you? I mean, really?”
“Really,” he said.
“What are you… I mean, do you have any ideas about what you’re going to do?” Are you having any better luck in figuring out that whole future-plans thing than I am?
“I don’t know. I really don’t, but…whatever.” He paused. “Seriously, if you need anything, call me.”
“I will. Thanks, bro.”
She sat staring at the phone in her hand, then sighed. One down.
At eleven, Greta took another cruise through the Dubrovniks’ pantry. It still seemed sparse at best, and some of the food was stuff she wouldn’t dream of serving. As Nadia had said, she seemed to have a preference for canned pasta.
Still, Greta found a couple of cans of tomato soup. And she knew there was American cheese in the refrigerator. She’d make grilled cheese sandwiches and soup, then bring Hank a Thermos, assuming that there was one hiding somewhere in the multitude of kitchen cabinets.
Hyacinth wandered in at eleven thirty, carrying what looked like a jelly jar full of dirt. Alice arrived just behind her, narrowing her eyes. “What’s in there?”
Hyacinth blinked, then shrugged. “Just a couple of beetles. I need to check my field guide to see what they are.”
“They don’t belong in the kitchen,” Alice said severely.
“They’re in a jar,” Hyacinth explained. “They can’t do anything.”
“I don’t want to have them around in the room while I’m eating. Take them out on the back porch.”
Hyacinth’s brow furrowed. “Grandma,” she muttered in a long-suffering voice.
“Hyacinth.” Alice folded her arms. “Outside.”
The child sighed, then headed for the back door.
Greta half turned from the stove. “Do you want your food here or in the dining room?”
“Here is fine.” Alice frowned slightly. “Usually we just make our own lunch. I never expected Nadia to cook it.”
Greta shrugged. “Soup and grilled cheese won’t need much fixing.”
“And you’re going to check on the absent-minded professor?”
She shrugged again. “Well, somebody needs to make sure he hasn’t killed himself.” The thought of Hank actually having a fatal accident this time around suddenly made her feel a little nauseated, but she fought it down.
“Agreed.” Alice served herself a bowl of soup and took a seat at the table as Greta flipped a golden cheese sandwich off the grill. “So you’re running away from a bad divorce?”
Greta sighed. Probably too much to ask for Nadia to keep things to herself. “It wasn’t all that bad. It’s not the divorce I’m avoiding—it’s my mother.”
“Your mother liked your husband?”
“Sort of, I guess. Mostly my mom likes to have everything settled. Me married. Josh married. Everybody taken care of. I really intended to tell her about my husband and me, except then my brother’s fiancée ran off with her former boyfriend on the day of the wedding, and I figured Mom had enough to deal with.” This was, at best, a very lame excuse, given that she could have told her mother about the divorce several months ago, or at least about the separation. But Alice seemed willing to let her get by with it.
The back door opened again and Hyacinth returned. “I let them go.”
Alice frowned. “I thought you were going to look them up in your field guide.”
“I’ll remember them.” Hyacinth turned toward the plate of grilled cheese sandwiches. “Those look good.”
Greta narrowed her eyes. “You might want to wash your hands first.”
“No might about it.” Alice gave her a severe look. “Hands, Hyacinth. Before you touch anything.”
“Yes’m.” She stepped to the sink, glancing at Greta. “Are you cooking now?”
Greta nodded. “For a while.”
“Good. Aunt Nadia could use the rest.”
Alice snorted, but Hyacinth didn’t look like she paid much attention to her grandmother’s attitude. She piled a cheese sandwich on her plate while Greta ladled soup into a bowl for her.
“About your mother,” Alice began.
“I texted her,” Greta said hurriedly. “And I called my brother. The family knows I’m okay.”
Alice took a bite of grilled cheese. “Telling her where you are might be a nice touch.”
Telling her mother or Josh where she was could be seen as an invitation for her mother to arrive within the hour, something Greta had no intention of initiating. Not until she was ready to get back into decision mode. “I’ll call her later.” Later being a very relative term.
After Alice and Hyacinth had finished and Nadia had dismissed lunch with a wave of the hand (“Getting ready to harvest some sage, dear, no time”), Greta made a couple of non-grilled cheese sandwiches and filled an ancient Thermos with the last of the tomato soup.
She was pretty sure she could find the dig again. Sure enough, at any rate, that she’d declined Hyacinth’s offer to serve as a guide—which, of course, earned her a sardonic smile from Alice.
All right. Okay. He’s hot. But she wasn’t necessarily looking to hook up with anybody right now.
Not so soon after Ryan. According to all the self-help books she’d read, you were supposed to let yourself cool off first, kind of like radioactive material.
Of course, she’d never been great at accepting advice. Witness the current shambles of her life. If she’d only listened a little more carefully to the advice her mother had given her when Ryan proposed, she might not be hiding out in Tompkins Corners right now.
She identified the parking area next to the dig by Hank’s truck and the Danger signs. The forest was surprisingly dense, even on the narrow trail leading from the parking lot. She hadn’t remembered it being that bad, but then she’d had her mind on other things the first time she’d taken the trail. She wondered how Hank had found the place to begin with, assuming, of course, that he’d been the one to find it.
She stepped through the space between a couple of maples and arrived at the clearing again, but this time she could see Hank’s head and shoulders above the top edge of the excavation. “Hey,” she called.
He stopped doing whatever it was he was doing and gave her a smile. “Hey.”
Quite a smile, really. He looked a little like some kind of Norse god, standing there in the clearing, his face bathed in sunlight that caught the shimmer of gold in his hair and his eyebrows.
Oh my. She wondered fleetingly if she was up to this. But then, why not at least give it a try? She couldn’t be hurt any worse than she already had been, right?
Right.
“I brought you a sandwich. Also some soup.” She lifted the bag she was carrying, as if he needed to see the proof.
“Great. I was ready for a break.” He limped toward the ladder and she had a sudden memory of boosting him up the rungs, her hands fastened tight to his ass. Ah, good times, good times.
Once he stepped onto the top rung, she got a good look at the total Hank—broad shoulders, triangle of tanned skin at the top of his shirt, jeans that fit very well indeed. And running shoes.
Who knew running shoes could look that good?
“Come on over here. We can use the table for lunch.” He picked up a somewhat grubby-looking towel from the battered camp table where he had his gear. Like the coffee table in his apartment, the camp table was covered with rocks, which he pushed to the side to make room.
“What are all these rocks you’ve got here and back at the hotel?” she asked as she lifted the Thermos and sandwiches out of the bag. “I assume they’re important.”
He shrugged. “Possible artifacts. I brought them up here where I could look at them more closely. And I’ve got a couple of arrowheads.” He pointed at a pair of what looked to be smaller, more chipped rocks.
“Oh. So I gather your intern didn’t show up.” She handed him a sandwich.
“Nope. His ass is grass. Smart kid, but he’s got to learn this isn’t like cutting class.” Hank took a large bite of sandwich, then gave her a smile. “Very nice. Cheddar?”
She nodded. “And American cheese. From the general store. One of the few things in there I could use.”
“Yeah. Alice just stocks the basics.” His gaze flicked to her general store-issue T-shirt and jeans, then quickly away. No, Professor, I’m still not wearing a bra.
“Right. I scavenged enough to make breakfast and lunch, but I’m going to hit the grocery in Merton before I head back. Otherwise, we’ll be stuck with mac and cheese.”
One sandy eyebrow arched up. “Alice is okay with you shopping at a competitor?”
She shrugged. “I figure as long as I’m paying for it, Alice doesn’t have a lot of say in the matter.”
“You’re paying for it.” He put his sandwich down. “I thought you were strapped. I mean…well, the free room in exchange for cooking and all.”
“Just because Alice doesn’t take credit cards, that doesn’t mean other people don’t.” She gave him her brightest phony smile. “So what are you in the mood for in terms of supper? Me, I’m thinking chicken.”
He still made no move to pick up his sandwich. “What’s going on, Greta? I can accept a moderate level of crazy, maybe the zany level. But at a certain point, I like answers. And you don’t strike me as somebody who just does things on a whim.”
She spent a moment carefully unwrapping her sandwich, then glanced up again. He was still watching her. “Okay, look. It actually is a whim, sort of—I mean staying with the Dubrovniks and all. But it’s based on something real. I just need a few days off right now. Someplace to think without having to face up to…a lot of stuff. Sort of a decision-free zone. Alice and Nadia both know about it, and they’re okay with it.” Well, sort of. She felt a little like crossing her fingers.
“So how long do you need to think things over?”
“Maybe a week. I figure give it a week, and then I’ll head back where I came from.”
“Which is?”
“Which is something I don’t really want to get into right now, thank you very much.” She gave him another weak smile. “Would you like some soup?”
“Sure.” He took the cup from her fingers, his gaze never leaving her face. “Will you at least tell me how you came to be wandering around the woods in a hoopskirt?”
“I was a bridesmaid at a wedding that didn’t happen. My brother’s fiancée ran away with another man. I was taking a walk in the woods and then I found this guy in a hole. Enough background?” She picked up her own sandwich. “How did you happen to be in that hole anyway?”
“Stupidity. I decided to go on digging without my intern. Part of the wall collapsed on my foot.”
“But you’re digging today without your intern,” she pointed out. “What’s to keep that from happening again?”
“Nothing. But at least this time you’ll come rescue me.” He gave her a smile that made a quick chill run up her backbone. Heady stuff.
“I suppose I could do that. If I’m not busy cooking.” Her smile slid into a version that felt a little more sincere. “Do you need me to come and get you this afternoon? Will you be all right driving?”
“Won’t know until I try, I guess. But I can always call you if I need help.” He patted his pants pocket. “This time I remembered to keep my phone with me. What’s your number?”
“Oh.” She blinked. “I don’t have my cell phone turned on right now. I didn’t bring the charger along with me, and I didn’t want it to go dead while I was staying at Tompkins Corners. If you need a ride, could you call the Dubrovniks and have them give me a message?”
“Yeah, sure.” He narrowed his eyes. “Is this some kind of sneaky way to keep from giving me your phone number?”
She shook her head. “I will gladly give you my phone number. I just may not answer when you call.”
“Okay, fair enough.” He gave her one of those spine-tickling smiles again. “I’m guessing this is going to be one interesting week.”
“It could be, Professor.” She gave him a sort of dazzling smile of her own. “It very well could be.”
Chapter Seven
Greta stood in the kitchen, flouring chicken parts and humming. She hadn’t had a chance to do any real cooking for weeks, months in fact. Well, years if she was being honest. Not since she’d gotten married, anyway. She’d tried cooking a couple of meals for herself after Ryan had left, but she just couldn’t get excited over cooking for one. Eventually, she’d started grabbing meals from the grocery, lousy though most of them were.
And she’d barely cooked at all while she’d been married to Ryan. His family seemed to find her cooking sort of embarrassing, like having a wife who was a former stripper or something. Oh baby, yeah, let me see you fry that bacon.
Of course, she’d had plenty to do as Ryan’s wife even without cooking. Sometimes it had seemed like she’d volunteered for every worthy cause in Boston. And in the evenings, Ryan always had places for them to go and things to do. Places to be seen mostly. She couldn’t have held a restaurant job after they’d gotten married, even if his parents hadn’t been dead set against it. She wouldn’t have had the time.
<
br /> After she and Ryan had separated, she’d taken a part-time job at a friend’s bakery. It had given her a small salary to pay the bills without Ryan’s support, but it wasn’t like pulling together a whole meal. Her friend was still willing to give her the same baking job, maybe full-time, assuming she returned to Boston after her Promise Harbor adventure.
Assuming she returned to Boston. Another decision to avoid thinking about for the next week. Decision-free zone.
She sighed, pouring a puddle of olive oil into a large, nicely seasoned cast-iron skillet. She had to hand it to Nadia, or whoever had originally set the kitchen up. The equipment was first rate even if it hadn’t seen much use lately.
“What are you cooking?”
Greta managed not to jump. The voice was coming from somewhere in the neighborhood of her right hip. “Hyacinth?”
The child climbed up onto one of the kitchen chairs beside her. “You’re doing chicken?”
She nodded. “Chicken Marengo.”
Hyacinth regarded her suspiciously. “It sounds like it has hot stuff in it. I don’t like hot stuff.”
“No hot stuff,” Greta said firmly. “It’s French. The story behind the recipe is that Napoleon’s cook created the dish to celebrate their victory in the Battle of Marengo. But he didn’t have much in the way of ingredients because they were out in the country. He ended up with chicken and some vegetables and crayfish. Today cooks usually skip the crayfish. Or I do anyway.”
Hyacinth opened her mouth to say something, then apparently thought better of it. “What’s a crayfish?”
“It’s a kind of freshwater shellfish. They look like little lobsters.”
“Where do you get them?”
Greta frowned. “Most of them are grown down South, I think. Louisiana is famous for crayfish. They call them crawfish, though.”
“Not here?”
She shook her head. “Too cold. They like warm weather.”
Hyacinth sighed. “Darn. I thought maybe I could find one in the creek.”
“Probably not.” She placed the chicken in the hot oil. “You like collecting animals?”
“I just look at them,” Hyacinth said quickly. “I always let them go. After I find out what they are.”