The House on Blackberry Hill: Jewell Cove #1 (Jewel Cove) (13 page)

But she needed to get out for a bit, and knew she’d regret not going.

So she put on some makeup, grabbed her purse, and made her way down the hill into town, parking a few doors away from Treasures.

When she entered the back door, the noise was already at a fever pitch. Half a dozen women were in the room, chatting animatedly. The only familiar face was Jess, who was currently laying out supplies on a table. A long counter ran along one side of the room, with a series of hot plates plugged in along its surface. Abby clutched her handbag and paused in the doorway, unsure. But just then Jess looked up and a broad smile lit up her face.

Her dark eyes were warm and full of good humor and Abby thought for a moment that the family resemblance really did run through the cousins. Jess’s eyes reminded Abby remarkably of Tom’s when he was teasing.

“You’re here!” Jess came over, giving her a quick hug.

Abby had no chance to guard against the contact, and let herself be hugged briefly before giving a light laugh and extricating herself from Jess’s embrace. “I did.”

“I’m glad. Come meet the other ladies before we get started.”

Under Jess’s guidance, Abby met Cindy White, mother of twins and wife of a local fisherman who considered Jess’s classes her night away from the craziness at home. There was middle-aged Gloria Henderson, who played the organ at the Baptist church and kept her hair in a precise bob just below her ears. Abby also met Summer Arnold, who looked like she was in her early twenties and had a nose ring and a streak of hot pink through her blond hair, and Lisa Goodwin, another young mom, who worked at the bank and whose husband worked at the fish plant just outside of town. All of them gave her a warm welcome, but it was Gloria who gave her an assessing look, raised one eyebrow, and said, “Heard you hired Tom Arseneault to fix up the house.”

“I did, yes. He started sealing my windows yesterday.”

Gloria’s smile widened. “Sealing windows.” Her tone inferred a different job altogether. “Not hard on the eyes, our Tom.”

What could Abby say? She’d be a liar to say she didn’t notice, and they’d all know it. The room had quieted a bit and she realized a few pairs of ears were waiting for her answer. She smiled. “No, he’s not,” she confessed. “But that’s not why I hired him.”

“Of course not.” Gloria winked at her. “Nice perk, though. His father was always a looker, especially when he used to mow the grass with his shirt off—”

“Gloria!” Cindy’s shocked voice interrupted, but Gloria shrugged.

“Shoot, Cindy. Whole town knows I dated Pete Arseneault when I was eighteen. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and I don’t need glasses yet.”

Abby laughed. “Anything I say is going to sound so wrong right about now. I think I’ll just keep quiet.”

“Smart girl here, Jess. She’ll do.” Gloria nodded as she issued her seal of approval.

“Should we get started, then?” Jess asked. “Tonight we’re going to be making Mason jar candles using soy wax. If everyone will pick a workstation, we’ll begin.”

*   *   *

The glass jars were still hot and Abby could see she had a few bubbles in her wax, but she didn’t worry about it. The room had warmed with all the hot plates going and the aroma of wax and scenting oils hung in the air. She was pleased. It had been fun, melting the wax and then using Jess’s “recipe” to add the proper combinations of scents and dye. She had two candles to take home later, one a creamy white scented with warm vanilla and the other a spicy red cinnamon. She’d learned more about Jewell Cove in this one hour than she had all the rest of the time she’d been in town. It was a close-knit community, a little prone to gossip as most small towns were, and not without its troubles, but also supportive of one another when times were tough.

Now Jess had laid out snacks and wine and Abby found herself with a glass of pinot noir in her hand, dipping a cracker in a delicious red pepper dip.

“Having a good time?” Jess stopped by, her glass containing something clear and fizzy. Abby supposed as the hostess she was abstaining from the wine.

“Wonderful. It was really fun. And everyone is just so nice.”

“They like you, too. Though everyone was fairly restrained. They don’t want to scare you off. Lips might get looser as the wine flows.”

Abby grinned. This had been restrained? “Thanks for the warning.”

She answered numerous questions about the house, though she learned as much as she revealed as even the younger women knew of Marian and the home she’d run for years. Lisa Goodwin, the young mom from the bank, topped up Abby’s glass and smiled sadly at her. “Your great-aunt was a special lady, Abby.”

“You knew her?” Everyone in Jewell Cove seemed to think a lot of Marian. Abby found it slightly odd that a woman reputed to be so kind and giving could have shut out the only family she had left. Why had she never contacted Iris, or had the tables been turned? Lately Abby had started to think it might have something to do with the secrets that seemed locked up in the house. Maybe, in the end, Marian hadn’t had a choice.

“I was one of the last babies born there. She took my mother in, you know.”

Abby’s heart took a jolt. “You? You were born at Foster House?”

Lisa laughed lightly. “I was, but it’s not like I remember it,” she said, and Abby laughed, too.

“Of course not.”

“My birth mom couldn’t stay at home once she found out she was pregnant. With Marian’s help she put me up for adoption. I grew up right here in the Cove with two wonderful parents. I guess not long after that Marian closed it up. She was getting older and looking after the girls was a lot of work. And, well, society changed. It’s a lot less taboo now to be a single mom.”

“Still hard, though,” Abby mused.

“Cheers to that,” Lisa said, touching the rim of her glass to Abby’s. “Honestly, I don’t know how single moms do it. I can barely handle my son and my husband.”

The hour wore on and Abby felt herself getting fuzzy around the edges. She really should have eaten dinner beforehand, she thought. The laughter was coming a little more readily when Summer, who’d been mostly quiet, treated the group to a sideways smile as she twirled one pink strand of hair around her finger. “I just wanted to give a toast to Jess for expanding her deck,” Summer said, lifting her glass to their host. “Tom was working with his shirt off the other afternoon. It was quite the visual treat.”

“Amen,” Abby said clearly, then put her fingers over her lips. “Did I say that out loud?”

After a second of stunned silence everyone burst out laughing. Why on earth had she said that?

Cindy snickered. “I’ll second that. Must be all that manual labor. A man like that must be good with his hands…” She looked up and flushed a little. “Sorry, Jess. Know he’s your cousin and all, but damn, you know?”

Gloria tut-tutted. “And you’re a married woman.”

“Hey, just because I’m on a diet doesn’t mean I can’t look at the menu.”

More laughs. “You have a boyfriend, Abby? Someone special back in Nova Scotia?”

Her throat tightened. “Not really.”

“Well, then.” Cindy sat back in her chair with satisfaction. “You should give our Tom a tumble.”

“Cindy!” This time from Lisa. She looked at Abby. “Don’t mind her. She’s off the market so she spends far too much time setting other people up.”

“Worked for you and Jason now, didn’t it?”

Lisa grinned. “Indeed.”

Abby took another long sip of wine.

Summer patted Abby’s knee. “You’ve been initiated now, Abby. Don’t take it personally. There’s not a single woman in Jewell Cove who hasn’t thought about Tom just a little bit.”

And yet, according to Jess, Tom didn’t date. Not since he’d had his heart trampled on. It must have been a doozy. It’d take a special woman to get him out of that dry spell.

She drained her glass and looked around. Someone like Summer, tall and pretty with a kind of quiet confidence and innate sexuality, perhaps. There was no ring on her finger after all. But definitely not someone like Abby. She was far too ordinary. And far too timid despite her occasional sharp tongue. A man like Tom needed someone more adventurous.

“Come on, Abby, what do you really think of Tom? And don’t worry about Jess. She won’t say a word, will you, Jess?”

Jess made a motion like sealing her lips and throwing away the key. Abby giggled, the sound oddly strange to her ears. She never giggled. “Oh, no. You’re not going to sucker me into that.” She recalled briefly how close the air had felt in the confined space of the stairway, and wondered what it would be like to be pressed up against the cool wall, pinned there by Tom’s strong body. The very idea was quite exhilarating.

“And … we’ve lost her,” Cindy mourned. “Earth to Abby.”

She looked up, a little slow on the draw.

“That’s okay,” someone said. “Tom tends to have that effect on the female population of this town.”

Abby really shouldn’t have let anyone top up her wine. Jess rose and excused herself for a moment, and like some unspoken signal, the ladies got up and began cleaning up the remains of the snacks. Abby bit down on her lip. Did Jewell Cove even have a cab service? All the other women tonight had been smart and walked to Treasures. Abby couldn’t possibly get behind the wheel now.

“It wouldn’t matter anyway,” she confessed to the room at large as she made herself busy, putting vegetable sticks in a plastic container. “I’m only in town until the house is straightened away and I can put it on the market.”

“You’re not staying?”

Abby shook her head. “I wasn’t planning on it. What would a woman like me do with a place that big?”

Cindy grinned. “Marry Tom and fill it with babies.”

There was loud laughter then and the chatter dissipated, covering Abby’s hot blush. The evening seemed to be ending, so she kept her hands busy by tidying the rest of the food table until the last woman was gone and then she turned to Jess in the quiet of the workroom.

“I feel stupid,” she admitted, “but I think I might need a cab.”

Jess’s lips twitched. “We don’t have one in town.”

“Oh.” It was too long of a walk to Blackberry Hill, especially in the dark. “Jess, do you think…”

How humiliating. She was having to ask Jess for a ride home. Next time she’d just say no to the wine and stick with something fizzy, like Jess had.

Next time? She wouldn’t be here long enough to make this a habit.

“I’ve arranged for a drive for you, don’t worry.”

“You did?”

There was a knock on the back door and Jess smiled. “Looks like your ride’s here.”

She opened the door.

Perfect. Just wonderful.

She’d called Tom.

*   *   *

Tom couldn’t keep the smile from forming the moment he saw Abby. She looked adorable in jeans and some sort of ruffled top. Her hair was down, and in the soft light of Jess’s shop it looked like butterscotch. But it was her eyes that made him smile. Wide and blue but slightly unfocused from her indulgence in whatever Jess had served tonight.

“Someone call for a cab?” he asked.

“I can’t believe you did this,” Abby accused Jess.

Jess merely shrugged.

“You ready?” Tom asked, his hand on the doorknob.

He saw her pause. Was accepting a drive home with him so bad? She set her lips and lifted her chin. “Just let me get my candles.”

She carried a still-warm Mason jar in each hand, her purse slung over her shoulder. At the door she turned to Jess and said, “You set me up. Regardless, thank you for a lovely evening.”

Jess laughed, and when her gaze met Tom’s her eyes were sparkling. “Come back soon, Abby.”

Tom followed behind Abby, impressed by the calculated precision with which she took the stairs. Once at the truck, he opened her door, breathing in the aroma of vanilla and cinnamon, some sort of flowery scent coming from her hair, and the tang of red wine left on her lips. It was a heady combination and he felt the uncomfortable stir of attraction once more. He took one of the candles from her hand as she got up into the cab, their fingers brushing on the warm glass of the jar.

He swallowed, thinking Jess had been far too conniving tonight by asking him to play chauffeur. No matter how often he’d told himself that there was nothing between him and Abby, his simple physical reaction told him otherwise. Whether they’d acted on it or not, the spark was there. The little sizzle between them when their eyes met or fingers touched. He had no idea what to do about it. Ignoring it was probably the best course of action.

He started the truck and kept the radio on, making sure there was sound in the vehicle so that they wouldn’t have to talk. But he should have known he couldn’t avoid conversation. Abby turned to him as soon as they hit Lilac Lane and apologized.

“I’m so sorry she called you, Tom. I didn’t ask her to, I swear.”

“It’s no big deal. I wasn’t busy.” Nope, he’d been sitting at home, staring at the television without really watching. Worrying about seeing Josh on Saturday. Wondering what he would say to his cousin. Wondering why the pain in his heart, the bit that had belonged to Erin for so long, suddenly felt awkward and strange, like it didn’t fit anymore.

“It was totally stupid of me to say yes to wine. And what kind of town doesn’t even have a cab company, anyway?”

Tom turned to look at her. Her eyebrows were pulled together in consternation, her hands clenched around the white and red candles.
Damn that Jess,
he thought. First the picnic on Saturday, now tonight. Honest to God, he loved his cousin but this was enough meddling already.

“Is that what she told you?”

Abby nodded gravely.

He stared at the road again. “We do have taxis. It’s a small outfit, but we have them.”

“Then why on earth did she…” There was a long pause in which Abby connected the dots. “Oh. Of course.”

They turned up Blackberry Hill now and Tom’s hands started to sweat. Jess had pushed the two of them together and they both knew it. What was even worse was that his cousin had known that all she had to do was say the words and he’d come running. Was he that transparent?

“Jess was just meddling,” he said tightly. “Don’t pay any attention to her.”