Secrets in the Stone

by Radclyffe

  “Work,” Rooke said uncomfortably. Adrian had the strangest expression on her face, as if Rooke were speaking a foreign language. Adrian probably really thought she was crazy now. “I should probably get—”

  “You do the gravestone carvings at night?” When Rooke nodded, Adrian said, “What do you do during the day?”

  “The same thing.”

  “You work all the time.”

  “Pretty much.”

  Adrian smiled. “You must love it.”

  Heat rushed through Rooke’s chest, and her stomach was suddenly all over the place again. She’d never tried to talk about her work with anyone because she was afraid they wouldn’t understand. But Adrian seemed to. “Yes.”

  “Can I come see, sometime? I’ve always been fascinated by cemeteries.”

  “That’s strange.”

  “Maybe.” Adrian grinned. “So what do you say?”

  “Okay.” Rooke was too stunned to say anything else. And she didn’t want to. She wanted very much for Adrian to see what she did. Some of it, at least. She backed up a step, then another, until she was standing on the snow-packed path looking up into Adrian’s face. “I should go.”

  “But you’ll be back, right?” Adrian had no idea why, but the answer to that question was more important than anything else she could think of.

  “I will.”

  “Be careful, then.”

  Adrian watched her walk away, enjoying the fit of her jeans over her tight backside and the way her mahogany hair curled along the edges of her cap. Her fingertips tingled as if the soft strands played over her skin even now, and her loins tightened in pleasant anticipation. Even as she welcomed the desire teasing in her depths, she recognized her reaction as completely foreign to anything in her experience and completely beyond her control. Fearing the intensity of her response, she went inside and firmly closed the door, leaving her wildly unpredictable emotions outside with the woman responsible for them.

  *

  “Did you know her from before?” Dominic grabbed one end of the extension ladder and hefted it onto his shoulder as Rooke did the same.

  “No.” Rooke forged a path through the knee-deep, unblemished snow toward the right side of the house where the fallen tree had wrought havoc. She was still trying to figure out why being around Adrian had her wanting to do things she’d never done before. On rare occasions she shared her sculptures with her grandfather, but he had probably only seen a fraction of the work she’d done over the years. Emma, the one human being she was intimate with, had never seen a single one. The grave markers that Adrian had asked to see were important to her, but they were designed for the public. She knew as she created them they would eventually be on display. Even though she brought all of her skill and imagination to those carvings, they weren’t personal the way her sculptures were. If her sculptures were ever revealed, she would be too. Exposed and defenseless, something she had vowed since childhood never to be.

  “She seemed to know you,” Dominic persisted.

  “I told you, I looked at the roof last night.” Rooke braced the bottom of the aluminum ladder in the snow and jockeyed it from side to side, making sure it was well seated on the frozen ground.

  “Is she married?”

  “I don’t know,” Rooke said, her chest tightening. For no reason she could imagine, she didn’t want Dominic anywhere near Adrian Oakes. Dominic was a good guy. He worked hard. He treated his men respectfully. He had befriended Rooke when no one else had. He’d first started working on the Stillwater grounds with his father’s landscaping crew. They’d both been eleven. Over the years, they’d developed an undemanding, comfortable friendship. He was easygoing and nonjudgmental and never seemed to want anything from her except simple company. They didn’t talk about their personal lives, although Rooke wouldn’t have had much to discuss if they had. She certainly wouldn’t have told him about Emma, who had worked as a bookkeeper at the cemetery for twenty years, and was known to everyone, including Dominic. When she’d first realized she wasn’t attracted to Dominic or any of the guys she saw around Stillwater, she kept the knowledge to herself, uncertain what to do. Then she’d noticed Emma, really noticed her. After months of flirtation, Emma had noticed her interest and tried to talk to her. Rooke hadn’t wanted to talk, she’d wanted to touch her, and Emma had let her. The rest had come naturally, and she’d been satisfied with the occasional pleasure of pleasing Emma.

  Just the same, when she thought about Dominic asking Adrian for a date, her whole body grew hot and she wanted to demand he stay away from her. The reaction was totally unfamiliar and completely confusing. The only other thing she’d ever felt so proprietary about was her work.

  “You want to go up or hold the ladder?” Rooke asked, needing to do what she had come to do and forget about the disquieting feelings she couldn’t explain.

  “Why don’t you go. You’re the monkey, after all.”

  Rooke grinned as she started up. She was lighter and more agile than Dominic and when they were younger, they’d race to see who could climb the highest and the fastest in the sweeping oaks and maples that guarded the dead at Stillwater. She had always won.

  *

  Adrian poured another cup of tea and listened to the distant thud of footsteps overhead. She leaned forward over the sink to glance out the window, and saw Dominic with his legs spread and his arms braced against the ladder to steady it. Rooke must be the one climbing around up there. She shook her head at Rooke’s stubbornness, but secretly admitted she probably would’ve done the same thing. She could never let anyone do her job for her, and apparently Rooke was the same way.

  She carried her mug to the kitchen table and set up her laptop, whispering thanks for her grandmother’s addiction to late-night television and classic movies. Her grandmother had cable and, along with it, Internet service. At least she wouldn’t be dependent on dial-up for the next few months. Since she did much of her research online when preparing a new project, being connected was critical. She Googled “gravestone carvings” and began to jot notes on a yellow legal pad. Before long she was completely immersed in the history of grave markings, the significance of the symbols and figures, and the social and religious messages inherent in the carvings. Captured by the familiar thrill of the hunt, she sipped her cooling tea and followed one link after another, all the while envisioning Rooke bent over a marble slab creating designs and patterns with hammer and chisel.

  The house phone rang and Adrian jumped. As she leapt up to grab the cordless phone on the counter, she became aware that the thumps overhead had morphed into banging. Rooke must be nailing down the tarp she’d spoken of the night before.

  “Winchester residence. May I help you?” Adrian answered, automatically repeating the message she had been taught as a child.

  “Hello, darling,” her grandmother said breezily. “So you made it all right? I’ve been watching that nasty storm on television. I can’t tell you how happy I am to be down here in Fort Lauderdale. It was eighty-two when I woke up this morning.”

  “That’s really very cruel of you, Grandmother.” Adrian paused as her grandmother laughed. “I do have a bit of bad news. I’m afraid one of the big trees came down in the wind and damaged the roof and the chimney.”

  “Oh dear. Is it bad?”

  “I don’t think so, but it’s definitely going to require repair. The fireplace too.”

  “Did you call your father?”

  Adrian took a deep breath. She didn’t need to be reminded how the family hierarchy worked. The men made the decisions and handled the problems. Even though her mother and sister, a VP in the family business just as her brother was, were both intelligent, capable women, they seemed content to take a backseat and deferred to the men in most matters. Growing up, Adrian had always run afoul of the subtle but clear lines between what was appropriate and what wasn’t for her to say or do or think. She’d always been at odds with her family because of that, and when she came out to them, the dis
tance had grown.

  But she knew she wasn’t going to change her grandmother’s worldview at this point.

  “No,” Adrian said as calmly as she could. “There’s really nothing he could do from the city, and I’m right here. I have someone looking at the roof right now, as a matter of fact. I was going to call you after I had some idea of the extent of the damage.”

  “Well, that was certainly fast. I’m surprised you could get anyone on a Saturday. And in that weather too.”

  Adrian thought better of telling her grandmother that she had actually gotten someone at two a.m. Somehow, Rooke’s showing up in the middle of the night made perfect sense to her—she appreciated Rooke’s stubborn, single-minded focus. They were alike that way. Her grandmother, though, like the rest of the family, was big on doing things in the “proper fashion.”

  “They’ve been really terrific. Some contractors who manage the work at the cemetery in—”

  “Ronald Tyler?” her grandmother asked sharply.

  “Yes. Well, he’s not actually here,” Adrian said, surprised by her grandmother’s tone. “His granddaughter and another man are looking at the damage.”

  “The girl is there?”

  Adrian’s defenses immediately shot up at her grandmother’s dismissive manner. If she’d been feline, her fur would have been standing on end and her claws would have been out and ready for battle. “Yes, Rooke Tyler. But she’s hardly a girl. She must be in her mid-twenties at least.”

  “I’m surprised Ronald has her doing that kind of work. She’s not…” Her grandmother’s voice dropped. “She’s not quite right, you know.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Adrian said stiffly. She’d spent quite a bit of time with Rooke the night before, and despite the fact that they tended to rub each other the wrong way, Rooke had been nothing but scrupulously polite and responsible. If anything, Adrian had been the one verging on rude. “She seems very knowledgeable.”

  “I’m sure she’s capable of whatever job her grandfather has her doing at the cemetery, but I do think you should get another estimate just to be sure.”

  “Ronald Tyler came highly recommended.” Adrian didn’t add the recommendation came from a cab driver whose name she didn’t even know. She had the strongest urge to protect Rooke from her grandmother’s criticisms, and she wasn’t entirely sure why. She didn’t know her, after all.

  “I know it’s all the rage to homeschool children today, but that wasn’t the case twenty years ago. Ronald kept her home because she was…well, the kindest word for it would be ‘slow.’ Everyone in town knows it.”

  Adrian laughed, recalling the verbal battles she and Rooke had waged the night before. “You have been misinformed. Believe me, she is not slow.”

  “I suppose you are a better judge than I,” her grandmother said, though her tone implied otherwise.

  “Grandmother,” Adrian said, trying desperately to hold on to her temper. “I can handle this. If I have any concerns about the estimate, I’ll get a second opinion. And I promise to keep a close eye on the repairs. You don’t need to worry.”

  “You will call your father if you have any doubts.”

  “I promise,” Adrian said with a sigh.

  “All right then. Is everything else all right?”

  “Everything is fine,” Adrian replied automatically, giving the response she had learned to give whenever any member of her family expressed concern about her. Because if she didn’t, she would quickly find someone else taking charge. “Now, go enjoy that wonderful weather. That’s what you’re down there for.”

  “I’m having lunch with Ida and Annette. I’ll send them your regards.”

  “Please do.” Adrian hadn’t seen her grandmother’s two best friends for several years, but remembered them very well from her visits over the years. Ida and Annette wintered in Florida in the same condominium complex as her grandmother. The three women, all widowed, were all members of Ford’s Crossing’s upper echelons.

  “I’ll talk to you soon, darling.”

  “Good-bye, grandmother.”

  Adrian finished the call and put the phone back on the counter. The pounding overhead had stopped. She started the automatic coffeepot, assuming that Rooke and Dominic would be coming down soon. She kept thinking about her grandmother pronouncing Rooke “slow,” and couldn’t imagine what had led to that rumor. When she and Rooke had talked, she’d found Rooke to be serious and intent, but also subtly humorous and pleasantly direct—anything but slow. More importantly, when they had touched, she’d sensed barriers and reserve, yes, but also strength and honor. Rooke was a complex woman, and if she’d allowed a whole town to think she was not, there must be a very good reason.

  Chapter Eight

  When the doorbell rang, Adrian quickly set the mug she was holding down on the counter and spun toward the front door with a surge of excitement. Just as quickly, she mentally admonished herself for the reaction. She was letting her inexplicably volatile emotions run away with her these days. Taking a slow breath, she walked down the hall and opened the door. Dominic stood just in front of it with Rooke behind him. They were almost the same height.

  Dominic’s eyes were alight with good humor and confidence. “Rooke here said something about coffee. I sure hope you weren’t teasing.”

  “Not at all.” Adrian returned his smile absently as her gaze swept past him to Rooke, who regarded her with dark-eyed intensity. Rooke and Dominic were like night and day—she was the dark to his light, the gravity to his bright joy. Adrian hadn’t thought herself drawn to the darkness until that moment, when she suddenly pictured herself walking in the moonlight, her hand clasped in that of a figure whose face was cloaked in shadows. In the fleeting vision, the moonlight, and not the sun, illuminated her world with stunning clarity, as if all the answers to her questions lay just ahead on that silvery path. With a start, she realized she was blocking the door.

  “Come in,” Adrian said, turning to lead them down the hall to the kitchen. “How were things up there?”

  “Tarzan did most of the reconnaissance,” Dominic said.

  Adrian looked back in time to see Dominic grin and shoulder-butt Rooke.

  “Tarzan?” Adrian asked, smothering a smile when Rooke blushed and shot Dominic a glare. The two of them acted like siblings, although Rooke clearly didn’t like being teased and Adrian didn’t want to embarrass her.

  “She can climb anything, although she doesn’t swing from branches much anymore.”

  “Dom,” Rooke growled.

  Adrian laughed and gestured to the table. “Sit down.”

  “Most of the damage to the roof is surface stuff.” Rooke pulled out a chair and Dominic followed suit. “Some slate will need to be replaced and a section of sheathing and slats is torn up.”

  “How big a job are we talking about?” Adrian poured coffee into the mugs she’d lined up on the counter. Her hands shook. She was nervous, which was absurd. She hadn’t been nervous facing down a lion that had wandered into camp in Kenya, where she’d been doing a story on Doctors Without Borders. Or when she’d informed her entire family over dessert on her eighteenth birthday that she was a lesbian. Talking to two perfectly pleasant people in the comfort of her grandmother’s kitchen was hardly threatening. Tired. She was just tired. Too much traveling, too little time to de-stress.

  “To do the work—a couple of weeks if the weather clears and the materials come in pretty fast,” Rooke said. “Getting the slate might take some time. Not that much call for slate roofs any longer.”

  Adrian handed Dominic a cup of coffee and placed another mug in front of Rooke. She noticed Rooke’s fingers were red, windburned, and quickly looked away when she had the sudden impulse to take Rooke’s hands in hers to warm them. Her gaze landed on Dominic. His cheeks were flushed as well. To cover her disquiet, she resorted to inane small talk. “You two look frozen. I’m sorry there’s no fire. This house just doesn’t heat right without one going.”
>
  “Nothing this coffee won’t cure.” Dominic took a sip and made an appreciative noise. “Definitely beats the stuff Rooke usually makes back at the shop. Now, this I wouldn’t mind standing around in the cold for.”

  “I’m glad you like it,” Adrian said, avoiding his eyes. She wasn’t offended by his mild flirtation, but she didn’t want to encourage him either. “I’m a tea drinker myself.”

  “Well, next time, you have to make me tea,” Dominic said.

  Rooke stood abruptly. “I need to take a look at the fireplace.”

  “I closed the doors to the parlor because there was so much cold air coming in through the opening in the chimney.” Adrian put her teacup down. “I’ll show you the way.”

  “I can find it,” Rooke said. “No point in you getting cold.”

  Before Adrian could argue, Rooke slipped out of the kitchen and was gone.

  “She didn’t even drink her coffee,” Adrian said, looking after her. “Does she ever sit still?”

  “She’s fine,” Dominic said. “Always happiest when she’s working.” He glanced casually at the yellow legal pad Adrian had left next to her laptop on the table. “Huh. You’re into gravestones too?”

  “Yes,” Adrian said. Somewhere over the course of the morning what had started out as passing curiosity had blossomed into an idea for an article. The fact that the research would provide a reason to see more of Rooke Tyler was an added bonus. “I’m interested in seeing how the changes in grave markings parallel the social transitions within a community.”

  “Uh-huh,” Dominic said with enthusiasm. “Well, you’ve come to the right place. Stillwater Cemetery is a few hundred years old. Everyone who’s anyone in the whole county is buried there. At least that’s how my father always told it.”

  “Really. And you and Rooke work there.”

  “Rooke lives there. She knows every marker in the place, and the story behind it.”