by Kristy Tate
“Yes. He’s usually protective.”
“Ah then, he recognizes a colleague. I can also be protective.” He stripped off his shirt. Even without my glasses I knew he was large, muscular, and tan.
“What are you doing?” my voice sounded unnaturally high. “I don’t want your protection, or your shirt.”
“You’re cold,” he said simply as he draped the shirt over my shoulders. It felt warm and smelled of him. “Come on, Wyeth and I will walk you back to the cottage.”
“I’ll get your shirt dirty,” I said, but I didn’t take it off.
“It can be washed.” He stood, looking indecisive. “Which way?”
The shirt hung to my thighs and the sleeves covered my hands. I rolled them up as I stood to follow.
“You’re bleeding.” Ryan pointed at a spot of blood I’d left on the sand. “What happened?”
“I told you, I fell.”
Ryan scowled and then sat down on the large piece of drift wood and pulled off a leather loafer and an argyle sock. “Here,” he tugged me down beside him and tied his sock around my bleeding foot. Then he slipped back on the leather loafer, reminding me of the nursery rhyme of My Brother John with one sock off and one sock on. Ryan stood, took hold of my hand, and pulled me up. “If you walk on my sock it’ll be ruined.” He turned his back to me. “Hop on.”
“I’d rather not.” I hobbled away from him, unhappy with the way I’d let him tug me down and then pull me up. I didn’t want to be led around by him or anyone else.
He caught up to me in one long stride and placed his hand on my arm. “Get on, or else I’ll charge you for my sock.”
“Socks are cheap.” I held my head high, refusing to look at his blurry face, valiantly pressing forward. I slipped on a piece of seaweed and went down on my knees.
He laughed and pulled me onto his back. I thought about struggling but gave up and leaned against him. I hadn’t been given a piggy back ride since I was a little girl and it felt odd to be straddling Ryan’s bare back, my arms wrapped around his shoulders. We bounced down the trail. My wet pants made a dark ring on his khaki’s waist band and his white shirt billowed around me.
“So, what’ll you do now?” Ryan asked.
His stride made my head bobble and my teeth jar. I thought back to my childhood horseback riding lessons on old Charlie, a Tennessee Walker who liked to trot more than gallop. I tried to relax. Unfortunately, Ryan didn’t have reins. “Now?”
“And after the summer?”
“Same thing. Teach, paint. Why?”
It occurred to me that he knew something I didn’t. I craned my neck to see his face and came too close to his blurry ear.
“Why?” I repeated.
Ryan climbed the small bank that led to the brick path of the cottage. We rounded the corner and even without my glasses I saw the front door was ajar.
Ryan stopped. “Did you leave the door open?”
I shook my head.
Phil Henderson, dressed in tight jeans and a blue loose weave sweater, stepped out onto the porch. He ran a hand through his hair and then leaned against the door jam. “Where’ve you been?” he asked in a lazy drawl.
“Who are you?” Ryan asked, still standing, as if hesitant about approaching the cottage.
“I should ask you the same question,” Phil answered, pulling away from the door jam and standing with folded arms on the porch, guarding the door. “I happen to live here.”
I tried to climb off Ryan’s back. He tightened his grip then almost immediately let me go. I stumbled on my bad foot when I landed, jumped over to a wicker rocker and sat down heavily. Ryan looked at me and then at Phil.
Wyeth, the fur on his neck bristling in outrage began barking. “Quiet, Wyeth,” Ryan said in a deep voice. Wyeth’s barking turned to a low growl and he sat down at Ryan’s feet.
Phil moved toward me and Wyeth growled again. Wyeth gave Ryan a questioning look. Ryan rested his fingertips on Wyeth’s head.
“Are you hurt?” Phil knelt by me and took the sock wrapped foot in his hand. “What happened?” He untied the sock and glared at Ryan.
“That’s mine,” Ryan said, holding out his hand for the twisted, bloody sock. He stood in the sunlight, his khakis water ringed and settled around his hips from my piggy back ride, his chest bare and tan. He took a step forward, his hand extended and waiting for the sock.
Phil, crouched beside my knees, looked momentarily apprehensive, and then tossed the dirty sock at Ryan’s naked chest. “I’ll get a real Band-Aid.”
Ryan looked at me steadily. “I better go,” he said, but he didn’t turn away. Wyeth didn’t budge from his side.
I whispered. “Please don’t.”
He motioned toward the cottage and Phil. “Obviously—”
I shook my head and whispered, “Please stay. He doesn’t own this cottage. His parents lived here years ago. I certainly didn’t know them or him. I don’t want him here.”
I broke off when Phil returned with a tube of antibiotic ointment and a box of Band-Aids. He sat down beside my foot, soaked the cotton ball and began to dab at my foot. I inhaled sharply from the sting.
“Nasty cut,” Phil muttered. “What happened?”
“Something sharp on the beach,” I muttered through clench teeth. “Phil Henderson, this is Ryan Everett.” Ryan stood over me with a deepening frown as he watched Phil.
“You didn’t see what it was?” Phil turned my foot over in his hands. “It doesn’t look like a puncture wound.”
Acutely aware of Ryan hovering over my shoulder, I wondered how I had ended up with two men and what I would do with them. One, maybe both, of them had to go. “Phil,” I began, “it’s really nice of you to doctor my foot, but I’m going to have to ask you for your key. This cottage belongs to the Dunsmuir’s.”
Phil ignored my request, tightened his grip, and began to dab at my foot rather harshly. “Helen Dunsmuir promised me the cottage. I have it in writing.”
“In a will?” Ryan asked.
“It’s in the will.” Phil squinted at Ryan and looked him up and down. “But it’s missing. I bet you knew that. Are you the lawyer?”
Ryan shook his head. “Real estate broker.”
“Well, this cottage isn’t for sale,” Phil turned and gave me a hard look, “or lease.” Phil dropped my foot and stood. “I don’t mean to be unfriendly or a bad host, but this is my house and I’m tired of staying on the boat.”
I started to rise and Ryan put his hand on my shoulder, holding me in the chair. “There must be some sort of confusion, because James Dunsmuir believes he owns this property.”
“Jimmy Dunsmuir is a confused little bonehead,” Phil said bluntly. “Always has been. Cried like a baby whenever his grandfather took us hunting, whining and sniveling, trying to shoo away the animals before I could even take aim.”
“A hunting buddy is different than a beneficiary,” Ryan said. “Do you have proof that the Dunsmuirs left you this house?”
“I was more than a hunting buddy,” Phil assured us. “Henry always favored me. He paid me to shoot the birds eating from the fruit trees—a job that Jimmy couldn’t stomach.”
“I’m ready to go home anyway,” I interrupted.
“You aren’t the one who needs to leave,” Ryan said. “Without a will, Phil here—”
“It doesn’t matter. I came to paint,” I said. “And that isn’t happening.”
“You shouldn’t give up so easily,” Ryan said, his hand tightening on my shoulder.
I shrugged. “I’m not giving up, I’m just going home.”
Phil dropped my foot and stood. “I’ll be happy to ferry you back to Edmonds. I’m going tonight.”
“Tonight?” Ryan’s voice almost cracked. He looked down into my face. “Look, before you decide anything, you really should talk to James.”
Phil furtively looked around. “James? I heard he was in Africa.”
Did he really not recognize James from the night of the s
torm? It was at that moment I began to suspect Phil’s mental stability. “In the Sudan, maybe?” I asked.
Phil flushed a deep red and I immediately regretted making him angry. All of my experience with the mentally unbalanced had been through correspondence. Every so often a particularly deranged letter made it into Hailey’s in box. When I was young the threatening letters had frightened me, but as I grew older I found the chummy, adoring letters just as disturbing. For a while Gram had a stalker, a short, balding man with glasses that cried whenever he saw her. She said Harold had taken care of him. I didn’t know what Harold did to the balding man, but he stopped appearing on the street corner or in the grocery store. I hoped he had stopped crying too.
“I’ll get my things,” I said. I tested my bandaged foot.
“You can ride back with me,” Ryan said, obviously unwilling to relinquish his guardianship. He followed my slow limp up the stairs. I felt Phil watching our backs.
“Are you sure you’re ready to go home?” Ryan asked in a low voice when we reached the top of the stairs.
I peeked around him. I couldn’t see Phil, only Wyeth on the stairs right behind us. His tail wagged happily and beat a steady thump on the wall. I frowned, shivered and dropped my voice to a whisper. “I can’t share the cottage with Phil, so unless I know that he’s gone, or has relinquished the key, I won’t stay here.” I told him about the night of the storm, my two intruders and what I’d learned about Phil on the Internet. “He makes me nervous, James too. They seem to have an adolescent rivalry that they haven’t shaken.” I told him about James staying in his tent to spy on the house to make sure Phil wasn’t stealing. “I feel like I’ve fallen into the middle of a Hatfield and McCoy turf war.”
At home, I had a structured and orderly life. I ran in the mornings along Lake Sammamish’s shore. Every day I read the previous day’s column over a bowl of oatmeal then mulled over new letters, thinking of appropriate witticisms and quips until lunch. I taught at the academy in the afternoon and painted, or tried to, in the evenings. Most evenings. Well, some evenings. I sighed.
“You could probably stay with Artie,” Ryan said.
“No. I want to go home.” I went into the tiny bedroom I’d shared with Wyeth and closed the door on Ryan. The world became clearer once I found my extra pair of glasses on the nightstand.
I would go home and put this all behind me. Wyeth and I would run along Lake Sammamish in the morning and I’d paint in the afternoon. By the end of the month I could be ready for the Crystal Hawthorne Memorial Contest. I would wear my favorite black dress and emerald earrings to the opening night.
I slipped off Ryan’s shirt and immediately felt cold. Removing my torn blouse, I rooted in my bag for a clean T-shirt and a pair of khaki shorts. I rolled my dirty, wet clothes into my bag, content with my plans. I attempted to detangle my hair, but finally gave up and shoved it into a messy ponytail. I slipped my feet into a pair of sneakers and tucked the pair I’d borrowed from Dina under my arm.
I found Ryan in the next room staring at my painting with traitorous Wyeth sitting at his feet. They had their backs turned, facing the large dormer windows. Beyond the windows the gentle Sound lapped a quiet rhythm. Soft, pale light poured in catching sparkling dancing dust. Momentarily I forgot the menace of Phil Henderson, his twitching eye and lying lips, and imagined staying in this time and place, capturing it on canvas. The sparse wooden floors, the straight iron bed with tight bleached sheets, white plaster walls that reflected the late afternoon sun, and Ryan and Wyeth silhouetted against window.
“It’s not the art I’m used to…no flying dogs or queens of reincarnation,” Ryan said, not turning to me, but breaking the spell, never the less.
I came to stand by him and he smiled sheepishly. “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about art, but I do like this. You’re very good…I think.”
“Thanks.” I handed him his shirt and watched him put it on.
I thought about confiding in him and telling him that for some reason I hadn’t been able to paint, but I didn’t. I closed the palate and gathered the brushes.
“Why do you teach at the academy?” he asked, turning to face me. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I wouldn’t think you’d need to teach.”
I shrugged and undid my canvas from the easel. I rolled up my work and put it in a carrying tube. “I love teaching. I love being able to coax a picture out of a child’s head. Besides, it pays the bills.”
“But you can pay your bills in other ways,” Ryan said.
I inhaled sharply, tired of his pussy-foot hinting that he knew about the column. How did he know? No one else knew, so why did he? And if he knew, why didn’t he just say so? Why torment me?
“Artie told me about your recent sale, congratulations,” he said. Ryan fingered my palate knife. A bit of blue painted had dried along the edge and he worried it with his thumb nail.
“My what?” I stopped collecting my supplies and stared at him. His brown eyes met mine.
Ryan put down the knife and looked at me closely. “Artie said you just sold one of your paintings.”
“No,” I said slowly, drawn out like a sigh. I tried to catch my breath and unscramble my confusion.
“You didn’t know?” Ryan sat down in the ladder-back chair and gazed up at me. “This is good news, then, right?”
I shook my head and bit my lip.
“You’re not happy,” he guessed.
I blinked and went to stand at the window. A thick thatch of trees crowned Otter’s Play Yard. I tried to distinguish otters from dark rocks. I hadn’t been there yet. Maybe there was still time.
“I haven’t sold any of my work,” I said, I could feel him behind me, his eyes watching my shoulders that I held perfectly straight.
“And it’s not for sale? Then how do you afford your lake house?”
I whirled on him, but before I could say anything Ryan held up his hand. “I’m sorry. That was inexcusable and absolutely none of my business.”
“You know where I live?”
“I am a realtor,” he said, as if all realtors know all residents’ addresses. “I also know where you swim, although you refuse to make eye contact.”
“I didn’t think you recognized me.”
“You’re the only woman there in a tank swim suit and prescriptive goggles.” He fiddled with the palate knife again. “So, why don’t you want to sell your work—or is that another none-of-my-business questions?”
I turned back to watch the Sound. Phil’s boat emerged from the boat house and slid away into the Sound. I felt a small lift of relief. Turning back to Ryan I said, “It’s just… maybe it’s silly, but I wanted to enter this contest and it’s only open to non-commercial artists. Until now, I’ve been very successful at maintaining my non-commercial status. It’s a very prestigious award and if I placed at all I’d get a showing at the Hawthorne Gallery.”
“Ah, I get it. A commercial artist can get a booth on Pike Street.”
“Something like that.” I gathered my luggage, allowed Ryan to carry my paint supplies, and clomped down the stairs, ignoring my wounded foot. Some of my paints were still in the playhouse. I’d have to get them before we left.
Ryan followed me and Wyeth followed him. When we passed through the front door I thought about locking it then decided not to bother. “I didn’t sell any of my paintings, but maybe Artie did. Can she even do that?” I thought for a moment and remembered I’d given her a drawing of her cat, Pinkerton, for her birthday. “Fudge Pinkerton,” I mumbled.
“Who?” Ryan asked, stopping beneath the moon gate.
I told Ryan about Artie’s cat. “Of all the sentimental trite, things to sell. Maybe now I’ll be categorized as the cat artist.”
“Huh.” Amazing how he could load so much judgment into one small syllable.
I remembered Lucy’s rhyme, “Beneath a moon-gate kiss, blessed with eternal bliss.” I dismissed the thought and trudged toward the boat house dock where the yacht was
moored. I looked out over the water, away from Ryan, and toward the black rocks on Otter’s Play Yard shore.
“What time are we leaving?” I asked over my shoulder.
“Six.”
I glanced at my watch. I had an hour.
“Excuse me,” I said to Ryan as I pulled Wyeth back to the cottage. I wanted to go to Otter’s Play Yard and Wyeth couldn’t come. I pulled open the door, pushed him inside and then shut and locked the door.
Stunned, Ryan asked, “What are you doing?”
“Wyeth has to stay here.”
“With Phil Henderson?”
“Phil Henderson should be afraid of Wyeth, not the other way around.” Wyeth barked and scratched the door in protest as we walked away. I bit my lip so that I wouldn’t swear. Wyeth knew better than to scratch the door.
From the other side of the boat house we had a perfect view of the Dunsmuir home. From a distance I couldn’t see the spider webs or peeling paint, all I saw was a beautiful stone house framed by pine trees, blossoming cherry trees, and dogwoods. I had a sudden clear vision of children tumbling on the buttercup-strewn lawn, and I had to close my eyes to banish them. When I opened my eyes, I saw Artie waving at me.
“There you are, I’ve been looking for you!” she called.
My back stiffened. I reminded myself that she had been only trying to help and that she didn’t know I didn’t want to sell my work. But I still felt angry and betrayed.
Ryan set my luggage down on the dock. I debated on whether or not to get the paints from the playhouse.
“What’s all this?” Artie asked, pointing to my things. “What’s going on?”
Ryan explained.
“Oh, that’s silly!” Artie scoffed. “You can’t leave just because of Phil Henderson.”
“Artie, he has a key to the cottage and he gives me the creeps. Besides, I came here to paint and now, well, there seems little point.”
“Sweetie, why do you say that?” Artie exchanged a glance with Ryan.
“You sold my drawing.”
“You told her?” Artie asked Ryan.
“I’m sorry, I thought she knew.” Ryan took the things I was carrying and set them on the dock next to my luggage. “She’s not very happy.”