Copper Lake Secrets (15 page)

Mark glanced at his watch before rising. “I’d better get back to the office before my assistant—” His cell phone interrupted his words. He glanced at it, muted it and returned it to his pocket. “Your friend, Glen…you think he might have stayed around here? Is that why you took this job?”

“One of the reasons.” Jones stood, too. “I’m pretty sure he never left the area.”

There was no significant change to Mark’s expression. No worry, fear, anxiety. The possibility apparently meant nothing to him. “I came back every summer until college, but I pretty much kept to Fair Winds. I wanted to spend as much time with Grandmother and Grand father as I could. But if he’s in Copper Lake, he shouldn’t be hard to find. Just ask around.”

The cell phone rang again, and he frowned. “I’ve got to go. Thanks for your time.”

Jones watched him leave, then headed away from the furniture and into the broad aisles flanked by shrubs, containers in trees and flowers. He’d always given himself credit for good instincts; all Travelers, especially the men, relied on them. But his seemed more than a little dull this afternoon.

Did he believe that Reece really had amnesia from that summer? Maybe. Had the scene in the creek really been horseplay that got out of control? Stranger things had happened. Was Mark really a changed man? Who knew what a man was really like inside?

But he couldn’t quite shake the memory of that look in Mark’s eyes. The same cold look in the pictures Jones had seen of Arthur Howard.

Being surrounded by plants usually put him on an even keel. He liked the smells—flowers, earth, fertilizers. They spoke of potential, beauty and the cycle of life. He could plant a garden now that, with a little care, would still thrive long after he was dead, or trees that would still grow strong and straight long after his great-grandchildren had died. He could leave a mark.

But today he wasn’t finding much of a sense of balance. The back of his neck itched, and an unsettled feeling kept slithering up and down his spine. An unknown person—or ghost—had let the air out of eight tires. A ghost had moved the family-history book—significant in itself?—and left a message on Reece’s mirror.

Mischief? Warning? Threat?

If you have any trouble with the ghosts when you start digging up the yard…

Grandfather
screamed
at me to get back in the house…

And the echo of words Jones had used himself a few moments ago:
family secrets.

Doing a 180, he headed back toward the parking lot. He could check out the nursery tomorrow. Right now he felt the need to return to Fair Winds.

And Reece.

Twenty minutes of driving around town gave Reece a good visual of Copper Lake. She located the hospital, the shopping mall, schools and probably most of the churches—and bars—in town. She even found the Howard church, recognizable from the huge addition fifty years ago paid for by and named in honor of the family.

She parked across the street from the church and sat on a bench that fronted a well-kept cemetery. Generations of Howards had attended the church, including her father—although not Grandfather. But there was no reminder of them in the marble and granite markers spread across the ground. All Howards were buried in the family plot at Fair Winds.

Except for her dad.

“I would have thought if you took the time to visit a cemetery, it would be the one where your own family is located, to say nothing of changing into appropriate attire before the visit.”

Reece refused to feel guilty about her Hawaiian shirt and jeans, but when she lifted her gaze to Grandmother, she found herself automatically straightening her spine and shoulders as if she were dressed in her finest clothing.

“Of course, even if you did visit the family cemetery, you wouldn’t find anything of your father beyond a marker, thanks to your mother.”

Ghosts rarely haunt cemeteries,
Jones had said, but attached to people or places important in their lives. Fair Winds hadn’t been important to Elliott in his life, so it didn’t matter in his death.

“Valerie carried out Daddy’s wishes.”

Grandmother
humph
ed. “Cremation, then scattering his ashes in
Colorado…
Never in the history of the Howard family—”

“It was what he wanted.”

Reece’s interruption earned her a tight-jawed look. “Death rituals are for the living, not the dead. It didn’t really matter what he wanted.”

That certainly explained Grandmother’s refusal to be swayed on the garden project by Mark’s insistence that it went against Grandfather’s wishes.

Or maybe she’d just spent so many years giving in to Grandfather’s wishes that she’d decided it was time for her own wishes to matter.

She seated herself on the bench, facing the opposite direction. “Why are you here?”

“I came to look at the church.”

“So you’re sitting with your back to it.”

Reece started to swing one leg to straddle the bench, decided against the criticism sure to follow and stood to turn around properly. “I remember it a little.” Stiff dresses, shoes that pinched her toes, best behavior, a little white leather-bound Bible with her name engraved in gold.

She couldn’t recall ever seeing the Bible again after that summer.

Granted, she’d never gone to church again, either. Valerie had liked sleeping in on Sundays.

“Your father’s memorial service was held here. Can’t rightly call it a funeral without a body, not even ashes.” Grandmother scowled at the steeple atop the church. “Cecil’s funeral was held here, also, as well as your grandfather’s. If you’d like to visit their graves, you know where the family plot is.”

Reece didn’t admit to her visit with Jones the day before. She certainly didn’t admit that her only interest in Grandfather’s grave was making certain he was in it.

Abruptly, Grandmother stood, more energetically and gracefully than most women half her age. “It’s time to go. Come along. You can follow me home.”

Reece considered refusing just to be difficult, but what was the point? She’d seen everything she wanted in town, anyway, finding few memories of any substance, and all of them from her first month there. The answers to that summer were at Fair Winds, with Grandmother, Mark, maybe even with the ghosts.

She stayed a comfortable distance from the Cadillac on the short drive home, then pulled into her usual space while Grandmother parked right beside the patio. Jones’s truck wasn’t in sight, but clearly he was home, since Mick lay curled on a sunny spot of patio, the warm stones of the fountain at his back. He opened one eye to identify the newcomers, then closed it again, unconcerned.

“You there,” Grandmother said, opening the Cadillac’s trunk as Reece crossed the road. “You can unload these flats.”

Reece blinked, never having been referred to as
you there
by the oh-so-proper matriarch of the Howard family, then by the reference to flats. Had one or more of her tires been vandalized, as well?

Then Jones stood up in a shady spot of the patio, laying aside a laptop, and Reece saw the contents of the trunk: flats of pansies in yellow and blue, the shades ranging from palest pastel to vibrant, deep hues. The trunk was full, and a glimpse showed the backseat was, as well. Had pansies had a place in the Fair Winds gardens of old, or was Grandmother planning her own touches?

If so, Jones didn’t seem to mind as he lifted the first box out. “Beautiful. Good, healthy plants.”

“The garden society sells them as a fundraiser. Of course they’re beautiful and healthy.”

The snippiness in her voice didn’t seem to bother him at all as he carried the flat to a protected corner of the patio. Reece watched him walk away, the light load no strain on his muscles, the long steps no strain, either, on his long, lean legs. When he turned but before he caught her watching him—she hoped—she shifted her purse under one arm and bent to pick up one of the flats herself.

Grandmother stood in her way. “Really, Clarice. Let the people who are paid to do the dirty work do it.”

Some little devil made her imitate the tone. “Really, Grandmother. People who belong to garden societies tend to get their hands dirty in the garden. And you know what?” She leaned closer, lowering her voice. “It washes off.”

Sidestepping Grandmother and Jones, whose grin disappeared before the old lady could see it, she deposited the flat beside the first, laid her purse on a table and came back for another.

Disapproving, Grandmother stood by and watched as they completed the unloading. “The beds nearest the front porch were always planted with pansies in the fall,” she announced. “I realize it will be a long time before the entire garden is completed, but I’d like those beds done now. As I’m sure everyone’s realized, I may not live to see the final results, but I will have flowers in this yard for at least one season.”

She unlocked the door, then came back around the fountain, giving Mick an irritated look before pressing the keys into Jones’s palm. “Return the car to the garage—the code is the same as the gate—then send the keys back to me with my granddaughter.”

Reece might have been embarrassed by Grandmother’s imperiousness if she hadn’t become used to it so long ago. It was part of the Howard superiority over everyone else. Daddy hadn’t had a drop of it in him and hadn’t tolerated it from Valerie, either, but after his death, Valerie had proven almost as adept at it as Grandmother.

“Want to ride along?” Jones asked as he opened the driver’s door with a sweeping gesture.

She didn’t want to climb into the Cadillac where, unseen by their grandmother, Mark had so often pinched and poked at her, and she really didn’t want to go to the garage. But she agreed, anyway, sliding underneath the steering wheel and across the bench seat to the passenger side. Jones was just a breath behind her, filling the space with broad shoulders and adding his scents of sun and cologne to the aroma of fresh earth and plants.

The drive took all of thirty seconds. Jones pressed the electronic opener clipped to the visor, and the door lifted with a slow creak. The lightbulb overhead provided just enough illumination to make the space shadowy, cavelike, creepy. Goose bumps raised along her arms, and she suppressed a shiver by keeping her gaze firmly settled on Jones’s hands. Grandfather was dead. She wasn’t thirteen. She could handle this.

Especially with Jones an arm’s length away.

He eased the Cadillac into the space, squarely in the center. When he shut off the engine, the silence was overwhelming, the structure shadowier, creepier. Her mind’s eye saw that old pickup, Grandfather and Mark, the truck bed holding clods of dirt, something wet—oil?—and a tarp-covered lump. And, in a voice as real as her own, she heard Grandfather’s roar:
Get back in the house
now!

Chest tightening as it had that day, she fumbled with the door, then, too clumsy, she scrambled across the seat and climbed out the driver’s side so fast that she slammed into Jones’s solid back.

The impact knocked him a step off balance, but he recovered and reached back, taking hold of her arm, steadying her beside him. “You in that big a hurry—” His tone was light, to match his expression, until his gaze connected with hers. She must have looked as panicky as she felt, because his expression sombered and he led her out into the warm afternoon sunshine, not stopping until twenty feet of gravel and grass separated them from the garage.

“Are you okay?”

She nodded, not yet trusting her voice.

He studied her a moment longer, then asked, “You want to let go of me, or would you rather wait a minute?”

For the first time she realized her hands were clenched around his arm, her fingertips whitened from pressure. She tried to let go, tried to smile, to shake off the reaction, but all she managed was a faint whimper. That was enough to bring him closer, his free arm wrapping around her, pulling her until her body was snug against his, his voice a quiet murmur above her ear.
It’s okay. I’ve got you. It’s okay.

Heat seeped into her, and security and comfort. After a moment, the shudders faded, leaving her muscles tight and exhausted. The chill faded, too, and the echoes of Grandfather’s shout. Her pounding heart slowed, her legs steadied, her fingers unclasped and she thought inanely how different a nightmare was, even a waking one, when you had somebody to hold you and chase it away. After her father died, she’d never had anyone…until now. Until Jones.

She looked up at him and found him staring back, concern making his already dark eyes even more so. His other arm now loosed of her grip, he raised his hand, brushing one finger over her face, fluttering her eyes shut, skimming her cheek, feathering over her lips, as if he were wiping away the fright.

Then he bent closer still and kissed her. It wasn’t the hottest kiss she’d ever had, or the hungriest or the sweetest, but it was the best, because she needed it, and he knew it.

After a long, gentle moment, he raised his mouth, his forehead resting against hers. “Better now?” Soft words, tender.

This time she managed a real smile, if somewhat shaky…though this time, the shakiness was from the kiss, the taste and feel of him, rather than fear. “I am.” Then
she
kissed
him.
She didn’t warn herself off, didn’t tell herself that this was a bad time and a worse place for any kind of intimacy. She didn’t let herself think at all.

She just acted.

And he
re
acted.

Jones was no idiot. He knew it was possible for a kiss to go from nothing to burning-hot-need-to-get-naked in half a second, but he still wasn’t prepared for it. Hell, he hadn’t been ready for Reece to initiate a kiss at all. She’d needed calming, and that was what he’d offered: a hug and a nothing little kiss to settle her fears.

And now he was combusting from the outside in. His tongue was in her mouth, his erection pressed against her, his hands cupping her face while her hands roamed all over him. His blood pumped hot, fire licking along his veins, his only thought
now!
and his only need privacy. The cottage was closest and his befuddled brain was trying to direct his body that way, without losing contact with her body, when some small, still-functioning part of his brain spoke up.