Echo Lake

by Carla Neggers

  “You aren’t twelve anymore, Heather,” Eric muttered, then headed to her truck.

  The jumper cables did the trick, and her cop brother took off back down the long driveway without further comment on Vic Scarlatti’s new guest.

  Heather left her truck to run for a few minutes and went inside, trying to focus on her to-do list for the day. She found Brody at the kitchen counter with a mug of coffee. “Where’s Rohan?” she asked.

  “Wandering.”

  “I can’t imagine you expected to be on puppy duty when you got here. Bored yet?”

  “I’m never bored in Knights Bridge.”

  She noticed the slightest smile as he drank some of his coffee. She pulled off her hat and gloves and set them on the table. Rohan galloped into the kitchen from the adjoining dining room, his furry softness and endless cuteness in sharp contrast to Brody’s broad shoulders, muscles and general seriousness.

  Heather unzipped her vest. “It’s hard to believe you’d come back here in the dead of winter just to see Vic’s renovations. Is Vic in some kind of trouble?”

  “Maybe I’m the one in trouble, and I want to talk to Vic.”

  “That’s not an answer.” She shrugged off her vest and hung it on the back of a chair at the table. “You’re the one who’s supposed to prevent trouble. This is your first visit back home, isn’t it?”

  “My first visit back to Knights Bridge. It was never home. It’s where I lived until I turned eighteen.” There was no trace of bitterness in his tone. “Vic’s a friend.”

  “Your only friend in town?”

  Brody didn’t hesitate. “That’s right. My mother and father went their separate ways when I was fourteen, but they both managed to end up in Florida. Different parts of the state.” He set his mug on the counter. “We were never like the Sloans.”

  “And the Sloans would be—what?”

  “Tight-knit, stubborn, fixtures in a little town that time forgot a hundred years ago.”

  Heather grinned. “That sounds about right.”

  She untucked stray hair from inside her sweatshirt, which she decided to leave on. She noticed Brody watching her but warned herself not to read anything into it. In his work, he probably watched people as a matter of course.

  “Might as well take a look at my land while I’m here.” Brody set his mug on the counter. He seemed casual, at ease with himself and his surroundings. “I figure I’ll walk over there later on.”

  “Today? In this cold?”

  “I thought a tough Sloan like you would relish the cold weather. You did look a little frozen yesterday when you rescued Rohan, but I assumed it was because you weren’t in your kick-ass carpenter clothes.” He nodded to her. “I see you are today.”

  Now she felt sexy. “The road’s plowed out to your old place. That’ll help. You know, Justin and Adam will be out here soon to look over some of the renovation plans.”

  “Warning me?” He seemed amused by the idea.

  “What happened between you and my brothers?”

  “Ask them.” He started for the mudroom. “I’ll shut off your truck and leave your key on the seat.”

  “Thank you.”

  He paused and smiled at her. A deliberate, sexy smile. “Anytime.”

  He was outside before Heather could get a decent breath.

  Definitely couldn’t chalk up yesterday’s reaction to adrenaline. The man had her senses on overdrive. Other people, she thought, might be intimidated by him, but she wasn’t. She was even more determined to find out what he was up to in Knights Bridge.

  She reminded herself she was here to work and continued on to the front room, where Vic was settled into a big chair by the fire, playing a game of Scrabble on his iPad. “The bastard cheats,” he said without looking up. “I know it does.”

  “How badly are you losing?”

  “A hundred points. Could be worse, since the SOB has access to the Scrabble Dictionary, and I only have access to my poor brain.” Finally, he looked up, squinting at her. “Did you get your truck started?”

  Heather nodded. “Eric gave me a jump start. Brody was outside with Rohan when we arrived.”

  “Ah. Brody and a Sloan brother meet again. They behaved?”

  “They were civil. Vic...” Heather debated but decided she couldn’t resist. “What happened between them?”

  He waved a hand. “I told you. Some feud involving pumpkins.”

  “You know more than that.”

  He raised his gray eyes to her, studied her in a way that reminded her of his long career as a diplomat. “You don’t remember?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe vaguely. I tried to stay out of my brothers’ fights. I don’t remember anything about pumpkins, but there was a vandalized job site, as I recall. Was that Brody?”

  “Talk to him. Talk to your brothers. I wasn’t involved.”

  “Were you here at the time it happened?”

  Vic shook his head without hesitation. “No.”

  “I guess in your world a fight between a bunch of Knights Bridge teenagers wasn’t a big deal.”

  He winked at her. “Especially when it involved pumpkins.”

  Heather smiled. Whatever had happened between Brody and her brothers, Vic’s reaction suggested he wasn’t troubled by it, and probably hadn’t been at the time. “I should get busy. Do you know where Adrienne is? I have a few more questions about what she has in mind for your wine cellar if she’s around.”

  “I haven’t seen her yet this morning, but I’ll send her to you when she surfaces.”

  “I’ll be in the cellar. If I need to find you for anything?”

  “I’ll be here by the fire. I won’t be playing Scrabble the entire morning, though, I assure you. I’ll bring Rohan in here with me. He’ll need another walk before lunch. That can be my adventure for the morning. When I decided to look after him, I wasn’t thinking he needed to go out. I hope he wasn’t abandoned because some idiot didn’t want to walk him on a cold night.”

  “I can’t imagine such a thing,” Heather said.

  “That’s good, Heather. I’m glad you can’t. Adrienne says she’ll see what the town library has for puppy training books.”

  “Then you think you’ll keep him?”

  “I didn’t say that. DSS agents can often have dogs. Maybe I can convince Brody to take him.”

  Heather doubted Vic was serious. He resumed his Scrabble game, and she returned to the kitchen. She ducked into the mudroom and opened the door to the cellar. Heather Sloan on the job, she thought with a smile. She tried to picture Brody in the field as a DSS agent but got nowhere, and she knew it wasn’t something that would take her anywhere she needed to be.

  She flipped on a light on the steep, dusty cellar stairs.

  Where she needed to be, she thought, was right here, venturing into the cellar of the classic 1912 house she was renovating. She couldn’t wait to dig into the nitty-gritty of Vic’s wine cellar. She’d never been involved in building a wine cellar and wasn’t sure her family had, either.

  She started down the steep stairs. She was leading the life she wanted to lead. One day it would include the right man, but that man wouldn’t be Brody Hancock. Some things in life just weren’t possible, and that, she knew, was one of them.

  * * *

  Heather had been at work in a dark corner of the cellar for an hour when Adrienne joined her, dressed in slim black jeans, a thigh-length black sweater and black ankle boots. “I feel like the city mouse,” she said with a smile.

  “The cellar stairs aren’t kind to heels.”

  “Or to black. I thought it wouldn’t show the dust and cobwebs, but I’m already covered. Honestly, I need to make a trip to the country store and get some sensible shoes if I’m going to stay here much longer.” S
he glanced up at the low beams and network of pipes. “Doesn’t it give you the creeps down here?”

  Heather shook her head. “Not really, no.”

  “You don’t ever get spooked in your work?”

  “What do you mean? Do I worry about ghosts and skeletons and that sort of thing?”

  Adrienne laughed. “From your reaction, I guess not. You’re very practical, Heather. You must have to be in your work. A rusty nail is a far more realistic concern than a ghost.” She shifted her gaze to a wall where old tools, obviously long unused, hung on nails and pegs. “It doesn’t look as if anyone’s been down here in decades, does it?”

  “That’s because Vic’s owned the house for decades,” Heather said lightly.

  “Mmm. I doubt he’s ever been down here. I haven’t, either, during the time I’ve been house-sitting. What are you up to?”

  “Just looking at whatever might be relevant to the renovations.”

  “‘Measure twice, cut once’?”

  “Something like that. We try to head off as many problems as we can with careful planning, but there are always surprises.” Heather stepped out of the dark corner, into the slightly better light from a bulb screwed into a socket. “Not that I’m a great planner in my personal life.”

  “Ack,” Adrienne said cheerfully. “Who is?”

  Heather smiled. “Good point.”

  “Look at Vic. Do you think he meant to be alone at sixty-two?” She held up a hand. “Never mind. It’s none of my business. He’s been great to let me stay here in exchange for very little work.” She ran her fingertips over the worn wood of a workbench, scarred from long-ago projects. “Vic’s getting rid of this, isn’t he? I’ve gathered he’s not the handy type.”

  “He’s keeping it around in case there’s a need for it,” Heather said. “There’s plenty of room down here.”

  “Sure is.” Adrienne stood straight, clearly reluctant to continue. She took a deep breath. “What about this Brody character, Heather? I know he grew up on the lake, but he’s a federal agent now. Doesn’t that freak you out a little?”

  It freaked her out more that he’d grown up in Knights Bridge and had a past with her brothers, but Heather didn’t know why any of it should matter. He was one sexy guy, and she’d noticed. Better if she hadn’t.

  “Heather?”

  “Sorry. Mind wandering. I looked him up on the internet last night.”

  “I did, too!” Adrienne covered her mouth with one hand, as if she were afraid she’d been too loud and Brody would hear her. “I wonder if he knows, being a DSS agent and all.”

  That had occurred to Heather during her late-night internet wandering. “I can’t imagine he would care if he did know.”

  “More likely he’d find out about me since I’m on Vic’s Wi-Fi. Brody would tell us if there was any danger, though, wouldn’t he?”

  “Is there any reason to think he could be here because of a threat?” Heather asked. “Have you noticed anything suspicious?”

  “Not at all. Well, just Vic’s taste in wine.” Adrienne winced. “Sorry. That was a lame attempt to calm my nerves. I don’t know why I’m on edge. I’ve stayed here by myself on and off since early December and haven’t once had a problem.”

  “It’s easy to read into why Brody is here when we don’t actually know.”

  “That’s true. There’s no reason to believe he’s here in any sort of security capacity. We could just be picking up on Vic’s ambivalence about retiring. He’s still relatively young, and he’s used to a more nomadic lifestyle.”

  “Brody and my brothers have a history. You could be picking up on that, too. You’re more intuitive than I am.” Heather grinned. “Sometimes I need a rock to the head to tune in.”

  “A defense mechanism given your five older brothers, maybe. Vic’s never said so in as many words, but I gather they’re a tough lot.”

  “Depends on your point of view, I guess. Justin and Adam will be up to look at the place. You can meet them and see for yourself. You’re staying on for a while, right?”

  Adrienne nodded, looking more relaxed. “I’m trying to get ahead on my wine blog. It’s always a struggle to balance planning and spontaneity. I just like to sample wines and talk about them.”

  “You also know what you’re talking about,” Heather pointed out.

  “I suppose. I try to be honest and accurate. I never refer to myself as a wine expert. There are real experts out there. I’m not sure how long I’ll keep up my blog. I’ve been doing more and more consulting, helping to create wine lists for restaurants and personal wine cellars. I can do a lot of that by email.” Adrienne paused, glancing around the dusty corner. “Vic said you wanted to talk to me. Is this where you want to install his wine cellar?”

  “I think so, yes. I have just a few more questions for you.”

  “Great. There are so many options for wine cellars these days. More fun to talk about wine than to ponder Vic and his DSS agent friend, don’t you think?”

  Heather smiled but didn’t answer. She launched into her questions about what would constitute a proper wine cellar for Vic, given his lifestyle and budget. For once, she would heed her brothers’ advice and keep her distance from Brody Hancock and whatever he was up to in Knights Bridge.

  Six

  Vic put his tablet aside and sprang to his feet, restless and out of sorts. It was his third time up and out of his comfy chair since breakfast. First he’d gone upstairs, convinced he should tackle a cedar-lined closet filled with boxes of junk he’d shoved in there when he first bought the house twenty years ago. Couldn’t get into it. He went back to his chair. Then he’d checked on Rohan, who’d wandered off—this time safely to his bed in the back room. He was such a cute little fellow. How could anyone dump him out here in the cold?

  Now—the third time to his feet—Vic figured he would distract himself by filling the wood box, but it was already full. Adrienne’s doing, no doubt. Maybe Brody’s. Not Heather’s. She hadn’t emerged from the cellar since first thing that morning. It was noon now. Was she going to eat down there?

  He went to stir the fire, but it didn’t need stirring.

  He raked a hand over his head in frustration. A big house like this, and he didn’t know what to do with himself.

  Not true. He knew. He just didn’t want to do any of it.

  One more solo Scrabble game on his iPad, though, and he would go out of his mind.

  Adrienne had come up from the cellar and gone off to another part of the house to work, she said, on his wine list. Vic realized she was at some kind of turning point and was figuring out her life. House-sitting for him while continuing to consult and work on her blog gave her a chance to catch her breath, put things on pause before she made any major changes. He suspected there was a love affair gone bad in her recent past, but she hadn’t mentioned a broken heart, and he hadn’t asked.

  He could see Adrienne with a man like Brody. She was restless, adventurous. She would be suited to his life as a DSS agent.

  Vic wasn’t sure what Brody knew about wine, though.

  He gave an inward grown. He felt like a worm in hot ashes. Peas on a hot knife.

  “Crazy,” he muttered.

  Pacing and grumbling wouldn’t get him anywhere. Brody had made a good point. Vic hadn’t wanted to hear it, but the truth was, he wasn’t prepared for retirement. He was prepared for not working. Two different things. Mentally and financially, he was fine. It was figuring out what to do with himself day to day that was killing him. His delight and relief at having free time and limited obligations—being out of the pressure cooker of his life as a senior Foreign Service officer—had quickly shifted to...what the hell am I going to do for the next thirty years? Both his parents had lived into their nineties. Odds were pretty good he wasn’t in for an early grave.


  “I should fire the housekeeper and clean the place myself,” he said under his breath. “That would give me something to do.”

  Adrienne appeared in the double doorway between the living room and the dining room. She placed a hand on the woodwork, frowning at him with obvious concern. “Vic? You okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Talking to myself.”

  “One of the perks of living out here on the lake.” Adrienne shivered as she entered the living room and approached the roaring fire. “I had to run out to the car. It’s colder than I thought out there. Why did you buy a place in Knights Bridge, Vic? There are so many places where you’d be more likely to find people who have more in common with you.”

  “Because Knights Bridge isn’t any of those places. I love to visit friends, but being here...” He glanced around the room with its massive stone hearth and views of Echo Lake, now blanketed with snow glistening in the midday sun. His throat tightened with emotion, catching him by surprise. He wasn’t used to choking up. “I don’t have any connections in the area. Maybe that was part of the attraction. When I saw this place, I snapped it up. I never wanted to leave.”

  “But you did leave. You’ve lived all over the world.”

  “I know. That was part of it. Knowing that Echo Lake was here, waiting for me.”

  Adrienne flopped onto the couch. “I think I get that. I’m not sure I would have before I spent time here. You haven’t done much with the house since you bought it. Were you waiting to retire and do everything at once?”

  “I didn’t think about it that much. Everything worked okay. When I started to think about retiring, I figured it was time to update the place.”

  “Make it your dream house.”

  He shrugged. “I guess. I still have to decide what furnishings to keep and what to toss. Some of the furniture was already here. Most of the dishes were, too. No wineglasses, though. The previous owner was a teetotaler. She was the granddaughter of the couple who built the house. She was what we used to call a spinster. I never met her. I wonder if she haunts the place.”