Secrets in the Stone

by Radclyffe

  “Well, you’re not far from the city.” Melinda nonchalantly brushed a hand down Adrian’s arm. “In case you have a yen for excitement.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Adrian said. She had a condo in Chelsea that she’d owned since shortly after college, but it was really more of a place to land than home. Her parents lived on the Upper East Side and her brother and sister hadn’t migrated far from them. Adrian had returned in November after having spent eight weeks with a photographer friend in the Middle East, writing copy to accompany the images of women and children displaced by the war. She hadn’t been back in the country for more than two weeks and her mother was arranging her social schedule. After suffering through a dinner party seated next to the son of one of her father’s business associates who apparently thought he was her date, thanks to her mother, she’d jumped at the opportunity to escape to her grandmother’s.

  She was actually looking forward to it. She’d always enjoyed the few weeks each summer the family had spent vacationing here when she was young. The slow, quiet pace was so different than the city; she used to spend hours on her own, wandering in the surrounding woods or traipsing along the river, exploring and daydreaming. She’d never minded that her brother and sister preferred each other’s company to hers, because she’d never really had all that much in common with them. She’d been a dreamer, longing for a glimpse of something new, imagining faraway places and exotic adventures. Her older brother Todd and her younger sister Susan were much more like her parents. They enjoyed the social life of the city and the glitter and prestige that went along with belonging to one of the notable families. There’d been a time when she was young when Adrian had wondered if she hadn’t been born into the wrong family. Maybe switched at birth, like a changeling.

  “What about dinner?” Melinda asked, resting her hand in the center of Adrian’s back. “Can I tempt you?”

  Oh, you probably could, Adrian thought, because she’d been tempted for hours with absolutely no explanation for it. That was reason enough to take a pass. “Thanks, but it will take me a while to get settled and I don’t want to risk the storm coming in.”

  “Another time, then.”

  “How long are you staying?”

  “Just for the weekend.” Melinda smiled. “Other than the estate sale I plan to attend tomorrow, my time is my own, and I’m adaptable.”

  The cab pulled to the curb on Main Street in front of a four-story square brick building with a wide front porch, tall carved double wooden doors, and a row of waist-high iron hitching posts bordering the sidewalk that made it seem as if carriages should be pulling up in front rather than mechanized vehicles.

  “Well, I hope your trip is successful,” Adrian said, trying to imagine what kind of sale brought such an exclusive woman to the quaint little town.

  “It already has been.” Melinda opened the door, slid out, and then leaned back inside while the driver got her luggage. “As for the rest of it, I have no idea. I’m in search of an artist whose work I saw in the estate listings.”

  “Really? Anyone I might’ve heard of?”

  “I have no idea. I don’t even know his name.”

  Adrian smiled uncertainly. “Well, then. Good hunting.”

  “Thank you.” Melinda held out her hand. “By the way, I didn’t get your number.”

  Adrian hesitated for just a second, then shook Melinda’s hand and recited her cell phone number.

  “Have a pleasant evening,” Melinda said, drawing back from the cab.

  “Good night,” Adrian called, closing her hand tightly while trying to ignore the buzz of electricity in her palm. She settled back in the dark confines of the cab, which now seemed to echo with emptiness, as if Melinda had taken something vital with her when she left. If she believed in such things, Adrian would almost think she’d been bewitched.

  Chapter Two

  “Roads are still pretty bad from that big storm last week,” the cabbie grumbled as he inched his way down the narrow unpaved lane that led to her grandmother’s house outside town. “Hope you’ve got a four-wheel drive. You don’t want to get stuck out here.”

  “We’ve got a Jeep,” Adrian said, silently hoping her grandmother had remembered to have it serviced sometime in the last year. She doubted anyone had driven it since the last time she’d visited, and that had been…a long time ago. She rubbed condensation from the window and peered out, but only an occasional light flickered through the increasingly thick snowfall. Her grandmother’s stately home was surrounded by two hundred acres of wooded farmland fronting on the Hudson, and the nearest neighbors were over a mile away. In the summer, when escaping from the crowds and heat of the city, Adrian rejoiced in the privacy. Now, with the naked trees standing lonely sentry along the twisting, dark drive, the barren landscape seemed cold and unwelcoming.

  “Uh-oh,” the cabbie said. “Looks like you’ve got a problem.”

  “What?” Adrian leaned forward, craning her neck to see out the windshield. She could barely make out the outline of the rambling three-story stone and frame farmhouse with its wide porch and massive stone chimney through the storm. The barn behind the house was completely invisible. She grasped the back of the front seat for balance as the cab abruptly stopped. “What?”

  “You’ve got a tree across the driveway here. Musta come down in that high wind we had a while back. And there’s a big pile of rocks further up. I can’t get the cab up to the porch.”

  Adrian bolted from the cab, immediately wrapping her arms around her torso. Her thin fleece did little to protect her from the knifing wind and her heavier jacket was in her luggage. In the cones of the headlights, she could just make out the unplowed circular driveway in front of the house. The snow was easily two feet deep where it had drifted against the front porch stairs. One of the huge sheltering oaks bordering the drive now lay blocking it. Beyond that, stones and rubble, the remains of the chimney that once took up most of the right side of the house, lay scattered in the snow.

  “Now there’s a mess,” the cabbie said as he slogged toward her. “Gonna need to get a tarp up on that roof before you get a lot of water damage.”

  “Oh, God.” Adrian’s first instinct was to climb back in the cab and tell him to take her back to the train station. She was cold, she was tired, and she was hungry. The last thing she wanted to do was deal with a house emergency. However, she’d faced far worse challenges, both natural and man-made, including arid deserts and nearly impassable mountain ranges filled with hostile forces. Even if it weren’t a matter of pride not to back down from any kind of problem, she’d rather climb up on that roof herself in a blizzard than drag her family into it. The mere thought of her brother showing up to direct the repairs while subjecting her to a barrage of unwanted advice was enough to make the hair on the backs of her arms stand up.

  “I guess I need a contractor,” she said. “Got any recommendations?”

  The grizzled cabbie took off his cap and rubbed the back of his head while the cab idled behind them, emitting an ominous clanking sound. “Not too many local outfits anymore. Most of the construction work around here is seasonal. Moving the tree won’t be a big problem. You just need someone out to cut it up for you. Once it dries out, you’ll have plenty of firewood.”

  “Doesn’t look like I’ll be having a fire anytime soon,” Adrian said, burying her hands in her pockets. Her short boots were losing the battle against the drifting snow, and a trickle of ice water soaked her right foot. “At least not in the main fireplace.”

  “Shame about that. Don’t see that kind of stonework anymore. Everything’s fake. Fake stone. Fake tiles. They even have fake wood now.”

  Adrian smothered a smile because the way he spoke made it sound as if synthetic materials were an affront to nature. He had a point, though. Her grandmother’s house was designated a historic building, and even if it hadn’t been, she would have wanted to restore it in the manner the beautiful old home deserved. “I want it put back the way it
was. Can’t they use the original stones?”

  “Seems like.” The cabbie resettled his hat. “You want it done right, you might give Ronnie Tyler a call. Tell him you got a stone problem.”

  “Tyler,” Adrian repeated. “Okay, I will. Thanks.” She took a deep breath and started back toward the cab. “Well, I’d better get inside and see how bad the damage is.”

  “I’ll get your bags. Watch your step getting around that tree, miss.”

  “Thanks. I’m okay.” Adrian grabbed her briefcase and her smaller bag and gratefully left him to wrestle the larger one through the snow to the porch. The light from the cab’s headlights didn’t quite penetrate all the way to the front door, and even though the moon slipped in and out from behind the clouds to illuminate the porch a few seconds at a time, it took her a minute to find the house key on her key ring. By then, she was shivering. She finally got the huge front doors unlocked, pushed her luggage inside, and whispered a prayer as she flipped the light switch in the foyer. When the porch light came on, she let out a sigh of relief.

  “At least the power lines are okay.”

  “Got lucky there.” He took a step into the foyer. “Feels like you’ve got heat too. Like I said. Lucky.”

  Adrian handed him the agreed-upon fare and a generous tip. “Thanks for bringing the luggage up.”

  He squinted at her, his expression dubious. “You sure you’re gonna be okay out here all by yourself?”

  “Yes, thanks. I’ll be fine.” Adrian didn’t add she was used to being here alone. That she’d always been here alone, even when all the family had been present.

  *

  Rooke Tyler heard the phone ringing upstairs in the apartment over her shop where she lived, but she didn’t plan on answering. When her grandfather went out, he forwarded his number to her because the calls were almost always business. Right now, the only business on her mind as she knelt on the concrete floor in front of the workbench was making Emma Ryan have an outstanding orgasm. When Emma writhed closer to the edge of the counter, Rooke tightened her hold on the hips that kept bucking, afraid that Emma was going to fling herself off and take Rooke down with her. Not only was that not the climax she was hoping for, but her toolbox was open on the floor behind them. She hadn’t even had time to close it when Emma had arrived unexpectedly, proclaiming she only had thirty minutes before cooking class and couldn’t wait another hour for Rooke to make her come. If Emma crashed down on a bunch of hammers and chisels, she was likely to get hurt.

  “Don’t you dare answer that phone,” Emma gasped, twisting her fingers through Rooke’s thick, unruly hair. “I’m going to come any second. You just keep your mouth right on that spot.” She arched her back as Rooke obediently attended to her demands. “God, you are so good at that. I can’t believe…I went…three whole months…without this.”

  The phone stopped ringing, at least Rooke thought it did, but she wasn’t certain because all she could hear was Emma screaming to God or maybe that she was God. She smiled, resting her cheek against the inside of Emma’s thigh. She never tired of hearing Emma’s pleasure, no matter how many times they did this.

  “Oh, honey,” Emma sighed, brushing Rooke’s hair back from her forehead with trembling fingers. “I am going to miss you something fierce when you finally get yourself a girlfriend.”

  Rooke stood, ignoring the cramps in the backs of her thighs, while Emma arranged her skirt. Then she clasped Emma around the waist and helped her down. “What makes you think I’m looking for one?”

  “You might not be looking, but I expect someone will find you.” Emma opened the hair clip at the back of her neck, smoothed the loose chestnut tendrils laced with gray back into order, and reclipped it. She braced her hands on Rooke’s shoulders, leaned up on her tiptoes, and kissed her on the cheek. “You’re too good looking and just plain too damn good every other way to be running around loose. If my ex-husband had been half as talented with any of his body parts as you are, I’d probably still be married to him.”

  “You’ll find another one someday. Maybe even one who knows what to do with his…parts.”

  Emma laughed. “You’ve spoiled me, although I do tend to be drawn to those extra bits by nature. Can’t really imagine why.”

  Rooke grinned and stretched, checking the big metal, plain-faced clock that hung over her workbench. Almost eight. She still had a lot of night left ahead of her to work.

  “I’m keeping you from something, aren’t I?” Emma asked, glancing toward the door to the rear of the garage where Rooke worked. In all the dozens of times they’d trysted in this small front room, she’d never been in the back room.

  “That’s okay,” Rooke said. “There’s plenty of time.”

  The garage had once been used to house heavy machinery, but when a newer, bigger building had been built to accommodate a larger fleet of backhoes and Bobcats to meet the cemetery’s needs, Rooke had claimed for herself the building next to the groundskeeper’s house where her grandfather lived. She’d grown up in the big house next door with him, but by the time she was twenty and this place became available, she was ready to live on her own. In the five years since, she hadn’t changed anything about it, other than finishing the second floor for her living space. The first floor was still just two rooms with concrete floors, rough wood paneling, and an unfinished ceiling with exposed pipes and heating ducts. The small room in the front where she stored most of her tools had a counter along one wall with pegs above for hanging tools and shelves underneath for storage of her bigger items and toolboxes, a potbellied stove in the corner with a small black-and-white TV on a high shelf behind it, and a big overstuffed chair in the middle of the room. She only used the double roll-down doors when she brought in large materials, coming and going through the side door by the exit sign. The forty by sixty foot room in the back was where she worked, and off-limits to visitors. Even her grandfather was rarely admitted.

  “I guess I was lucky I caught you when I did,” Emma said, gathering up her coat and purse. She linked her arm through Rooke’s. “I just had such an urge. Forty-three is too young for menopause, isn’t it? They say women want more sex during menopause.”

  Rooke’s eyebrows rose. “Um.”

  “Of course, you won’t have to worry about that for a long time.” Emma stopped next to the door beneath the big red exit sign. For a second, she looked uncomfortable. “Ronald playing bridge?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She sighed. “Do you think that was him calling?”

  “Not likely.” Rooke took Emma’s coat and held it while Emma slipped into it. “It’s okay. Don’t worry.”

  “You know what he’d think,” Emma said, her hand on the doorknob. “That I seduced you…well, I did seduce you. But—”

  “I was willing. And legal.”

  Emma snorted and stroked Rooke’s cheek. “Barely. But my goodness, you are something special. I never dreamed of a woman doing what you do to me. But, oh my.” She kissed Rooke’s cheek again. “You should get out more. It’s Friday night. Have some fun.”

  “I just had fun,” Rooke said gently.

  “Oh darlin’,” Emma whispered. “Thank you for saying that.” She traced her fingers along Rooke’s shoulder. “You’re sure you’re all right? Because you know if you wanted—”

  “I’m great, Emma.” Rooke smiled. “Really.”

  Emma nodded. “Good night, then.”

  “’Night, Emma.”

  Rooke stood in the open door until Emma drove off. She stopped in the tiny bathroom off the front room to wash up, then went into the back of her shop. She found her iPod, sorted through the images until she came to the New York Times bestseller her grandfather had downloaded earlier that day, and pulled on her safety goggles. Then she picked up her hammer and chisel and got to work, ignoring the tension her encounter with Emma had stirred in the pit of her stomach. The rhythm of steel on stone, like another heartbeat in the room, and the melodic voice of the narrator were all the compa
ny she needed.

  *

  Six hours later, Rooke headed back to the small bathroom, unlaced her workboots, kicked them aside, and stripped off her sweat-soaked T-shirt and jeans. She stepped into the hot shower, lathered her body and hair, and stood under the steaming spray until her skin tingled with a rush of blood. The image she’d carved still lingered in her mind, the seductive curves and tempting hollows coming to life beneath her hands. She hadn’t known what the stone would reveal until she’d begun to explore it with hammer and chisel, following its natural planes at the same time as her mind guided her hands, bringing the essence of the woman who flirted along the edges of her consciousness into being. She didn’t know her name, she couldn’t see her face, but she felt her energy and passion. And when she touched the stone, hot from the strike of her steel, she knew her more intimately than she knew Emma, the only woman she’d ever touched in the flesh. Emma, a woman she liked and admired, but a woman she didn’t love and who didn’t love her. The woman who haunted her dreams, who drove her into the late hours of the night in search of a glimpse of her, lived only in her imagination. And in the stone.

  Rooke flipped off the faucets and stepped out into the tiny bathroom, blindly reaching for the towel on the back of the door. After drying off briskly and efficiently, she pulled clean jeans and a T-shirt from a stack she kept on the shelf above the sink and dressed. She stepped into her boots, not bothering with socks, and walked back through the shop to the rear staircase that led to her apartment.

  Upstairs, she dumped her soiled clothing in the alcove by the stacked washer and dryer and wandered into the galley kitchen at the far end of the room that made up the living and dining area. She’d partitioned off part of the space for a small bedroom. Since she was hardly ever there, preferring to spend her time in her shop, she had never bothered to decorate. She pulled a beer from the refrigerator, popped the top, and finished half of it in three long swallows. The yeasty taste made her think of pizza, and she realized she hadn’t eaten since lunch. Living alone, working alone, she didn’t follow any kind of regular schedule and often forgot to eat. Her grandfather constantly complained that she was too skinny for the strenuous work she did, even though he knew she was stronger than most of the men in the grounds crew because she spent her days and most of her nights moving stone.