Secrets (12 page)
Rese punched the pillow and shoved it back behind her, trying to focus on the Subaru commercial and forget that she was alone in a house that fairly breathed on its own. Last night’s moans had become a brooding silence.
She should walk through the place, every room, even the attic, and prove to herself there was nothing there. Of course, nothing was there. She didn’t have to prove it. She knew all about old houses. She’d torn them apart and viewed them from the guts out.
Guts. She closed her eyes and shuddered. This was ridiculous. Take control! She tossed the remote down and threw off the covers. Just to the kitchen for food. No. She couldn’t stand in the cavernous kitchen without knowing the rest of the place was empty. She pressed a hand to her breastbone and opened her bedroom door.
The narrow hall was silent. She opened the door to the kitchen. Darkness engulfed her, and she fumbled for the wall switch. Her palm rubbed the wall until she found it, but no light came on. Right. That light had yet to be rewired. Only the gas stove and refrigerator were operational. But the stove’s overhead light would work.
She crossed the hard tile floor. A warm glow burst around her when her finger found the switch. With several breaths to calm herself, she made her way from the kitchen to the dining room. She turned the dimmer only enough to illumine the space. No ghosts. She passed into the front parlor. It had originally been two small parlors that she had opened into one because of the damage to the dividing wall. Empty now, it seemed overly large, but furnished with conversational sitting groups, it would be a nice place to serve the afternoon hors d’oeuvres.
The staircase rose up from the far side. Maybe she’d convinced herself already. She didn’t have to go up.
“Chicken. You’re nothing but a chicken girl.”
Bobby Frank was a jerk. She didn’t have to prove anything to him. But she had. She’d climbed all the way up the tree to the wasps’ nest and earned the stings to prove it.
Rese swallowed. “All right, Bobby. Watch this.” She started up the staircase. The wood stayed quiet beneath her feet. She reached the wide, ovalshaped landing and walked into the first bedroom. Empty. She moved from room to room, leaving the lights on and the doors open.
Now for the attic. She was not giving up without finishing the job. Besides, she hadn’t seen how much Lance had cleared out since he notified her of the mice. The thought of something warm and living—even a rodent—seemed almost comforting at the moment. Too bad they’d gotten traps. Well, at least she could see whether the traps had done any good.
Rese took a deep breath, pulled open the attic door, and started up the creaking stairs, groping as the light from the hall diminished the higher she went. A light over the stairs would be a good idea. Maybe Lance could wire it. But then, after this she would have no need to go into the attic after dark. Her toe caught on the edge of a step and she stumbled, gripping the single wooden rail and listening for murmurs overhead.
Had the spirits huddled together in some dark corner, waiting for her head to appear over the edge of the floor? She swallowed hard, then climbed into the attic, breathing the smell of dust and mice and old vinyl. Lance had cleared the whole front area. The empty floor lay pale under the moonlight.
Okay, she’d gotten a look. No, she had to walk in and turn on the light, let the banshees know that no one was dying tonight. No leprechauns, no fairies, no howling ghosts. She reached for the chain and stopped. What if she pulled it and mice scurried across her feet?
Rese let her hand drop. She’d proved enough. No bogeymen, nothing to go bump in the night. She left the light off, backed down the stairs and closed the door behind her, then turned off the hall and bedroom lights. She was alone, not a spook in sight. And especially no “friend.”
She went down the main stairs and turned off the entry light, the parlor lights, dining room, then kitchen. She opened the door to her hall and shrieked, then punched the shadowy figure as hard as she could.
“Ow.” He caught her hands.
Lance?
She couldn’t see him well in the dark hall, but she knew his voice. Breath burst from her lungs, and she dropped her head to the wrists confined at his chest, feeling so weak she wanted to punch him again.
“Calm down before you hurt someone.”
“You deserved it.” Her chest heaved. If he thought this was funny …
“You’re shaking like a wet dog.”
“What do you expect?” She tried to break loose. “Let me go.”
“Not until you’re through throwing punches.”
She jerked one hand free. “I’m through.” But he’d better have a good reason for haunting her hall when she’d told him not to pass the door. “What are you doing in here?”
“I came to tell you I was moving in my stuff. I didn’t want to worry you.” Still gripping her other wrist, he walked her into the kitchen and turned on the stove light. “I called to you through the door.”
“I was in the attic.”
He half turned, and the light reflected in his obsidian eyes. “What were you doing up there?”
“Checking the traps.”
He rubbed a thumb along the edge of his mouth, clearly skeptical.
“I was inspecting your work.”
“With the light off?”
She tugged her wrist free. “How do you know it was off?”
“I looked up the stairs first. The attic was dark, but everything else was lit up like Christmas.”
She could well imagine what he was thinking. She ran both hands through her hair. “Well, stay out of my suite from now on. It’s private.”
He nudged her into a kitchen chair. “You’re still shaking.”
“I was fine until you jumped me.”
“I was only coming out.”
She pressed her palms to the table. “From where you weren’t supposed to be.”
He sat down across from her. “What were you doing in the attic?”
She clenched her fists. “I was checking out the house.”
He raised his brows. “For spooks?”
She glared.
“You are tough. I’m not sure I’d go into that attic in the dark. But then I know what’s up there.”
“Don’t start.”
He laughed. “I meant of a natural kind.”
She rubbed her eyes.
“Tired?”
She nodded. It was after midnight. Not that it meant anything to her brain. She had this duel all too often. But what was he doing moving in at that hour?
“I’d make you a steamer if we had our latté machine.”
She peeked through her fingers. “Steamer?”
“Steamed milk with, hmm, amaretto syrup.”
“Sounds good.” She dropped her hands to the table.
He leaned on his forearms. “Order our machine.”
She could feel the heat from his hands inches from hers, like static leaping from one source to another.
Our
machine. She was too tired to argue semantics. He’d be the one using it anyway. “I’ll think about it.”
“Raspberry truffle latté. Peppermint mocha.”
She swallowed. “Why did you come back?”
“So you could pummel me in the dark.” He sat back and studied her.
She sighed. “I need to go to bed.”
“I’ll be quiet.”
She pushed up from the table and went into her room, comforted in spite of the scare he’d given her. It hadn’t been an intruder she had feared when the figure moved in the dark. Or even a ghost. She had thought she was seeing Walter at last.
Though he hadn’t meant to scare her, there resided near his solar plexus a wicked satisfaction. That was twice she’d attacked him in fear—no doubt about her place on the fight or flight spectrum, which begged the question why he had worried about her being alone in the big house. But it had nagged him until he acted on it, even though he’d already paid for the hotel. Some excessive urge to protect, or an overblown attempt to feel necessary.
Lance went out and brought his backpack and guitar in. She’d said he could pick any room, so he headed up the stairs with his gear. He chose the room nearest the stairs and the entrance to the attic. A nautical theme of the ancient mariner sort. It was done simply in navy and beige with a walnut highboy, a black iron bed and a strapped trunk at its foot. A ship in a bottle, naturally, on the mantle over the small brazier. An old watercolor of a boat in tempestuous waters over the bed, a net and harpoon on the side wall, and a captain’s chair in the corner.
He sat on the bed and bounced lightly. She’d bought quality. He glanced through the bookshelf that held a copy of Robert Louis Stevenson’s
Treasure Island,
Melville’s
Moby Dick
—as though anyone would stay long enough to read that—a collection of seafaring poems and a history of whaling.
Was Rese sleeping yet? He had worried about her being scared, then done the very thing he was trying to avoid. It wasn’t his fault, though. He had called out to her, then headed down the hall when he got no answer. A tool-wielding woman was not the sort to surprise in the dark, though she’d seemed anything but formidable.
He sat down on the bed. The way Rese had shaken in his grip, her fear must have built longer than the jolt he’d given her. Checking out the house? How many people would face the place alone at night when her mind must have already been churning?
This house didn’t scare him. If there were ghosts, they would know him. Maybe help him. But Rese was a stranger, there by happenstance. She had no history, no blood to connect her. Strange how that sent a sense of responsibility coursing through him. Rese Barrett was not his responsibility, but he would tread carefully for her sake. Not that she would return the favor, were the roles reversed. But that didn’t matter.
Lord, help me do this without hurting her in the process
. He dropped to his knees and rested his forehead on his clasped knuckles, seeking direction and wisdom, two things that always seemed just out of reach. He knew it was there for those who sought.
“Seek and you will find.”
But sometimes he felt like the last kid in a game of sardines, searching and searching for the others all crammed together in the hiding space while he kept walking by in the dark. He climbed into the bed and opened the small, gilt-paged Bible. The ribbon was in Matthew where he’d left off.
Red ink caught his eye, setting off the Lord’s words.
“Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.’ ”
Lance pondered that. It wasn’t new, or even difficult. He was ready and willing. He’d taken up many crosses, some not even his own, standing as a kid with the weak, the rejected, the picked-on. Momma had treated his bruises, saying,
“Your heart gets you in trouble, Lance, but never stop hearing it.”
Dad usually added,
“You might listen to your brain sometimes.”
He read on:
“ ‘For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.’ ”
An ache filled his chest. He knew how fragile life was. Strong, vital men evaporated. Lives charged with purpose…. Tony’s life filled with purpose, then just … gone. Lance swallowed the pain.
“ ‘What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? For what can one give in exchange for his soul?’ ”
Tony’s soul was with the Lord. But his life should not have ended. They’d all been reeling since.
What were you thinking, God?
He clenched his hands.
You got the wrong one
. Like he could tell God his business. But why leave a screw-up and take the one they all looked up to?
“ ‘For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will repay everyone according to his conduct.’ ”
That part worried him. It didn’t account for intentions. If he meant well, but still screwed up, and conduct was what mattered…. Lance rubbed his face. He set the Bible on the table. Somewhere in there it said God judged the heart. He’d count on that.
Fresh basil gathered warm.
Pungent cheese.
Dough soft as baby skin.
Pressing, turning, folding, rolling.
Rhythm.
Pulse.
Laughter.
Life inhabits our kitchen.
Sorrows are lightened, burdens shared. Joy seasons
the moments passed between us on a tasting spoon.
R
ese woke to the muffled sounds of activity in the kitchen and an aroma of something spicy and wonderful.
Lance
. She rose and pulled on a light sweatshirt over her knit shirt and lounge pants, since the mornings still held a chill. She washed her face in the small bathroom between her bedroom and the extra room she had set up as an office. She brushed her teeth and went out to the kitchen.
Lance looked over from the stove. “Morning.”
“Good morning.”
“Sleep well?” He spooned some meat mixture into the center of a thin sort of pancake.
“Surprisingly.” She had slept better than any night she’d been there, waking only once to remember Lance was upstairs.
“Good.” He rolled the pancake and placed it into a baking dish.
She yawned. “Did you?”