At her approach, he turned toward her.
Of course, it’s not Alex, she realized. This man is stockier and not so tall. And they look nothing alike. How could I possibly have thought…
“Hi.” The stranger smiled.
“Is there something I might help you with?” she asked somewhat warily.
“Is this your house?” He started toward her.
“Yes.” It’s the walk, she realized. He walks like Alex.
“Lucky you.” He was still smiling pleasantly. “It’s quite a place.”
“It certainly is.” Abby returned the smile slowly, still cautious. Primrose had few tourists. Could this be a prospective buyer?
“Funny how things look so different when you’re a child,” he mused, and stepped back, as if to gain better perspective.
“Oh, did you grow up in Primrose?” Abby relaxed slightly. A Primrose boy returning home.
“No,” he told her. “And as far as I know, I was only here once, with my mother. And I was very small at the time.”
He continued to walk the length of the house slowly, as if taking in every inch of the building, a curious Abby watching his every step.
“I apologize,” he said, as if it had just occurred to him that he was in fact intruding upon her property. “I am so sorry. I should have knocked on the door and asked if I might wander a bit. Forgive me, Miss?…”
“McKenna. Abby McKenna.”
“Drew Cassidy.” He smiled with the utmost charm and extended his right hand to clasp hers warmly.
“Cassidy? What a coincidence. The name of the family who built the house was Cassidy.”
“No coincidence at all.” Drew shook his head. “Thomas Cassidy was my grandfather.”
“What did you say?” Abby was certain she had misunderstood.
“I said, Thomas Cassidy was my grandfather.”
“How is that possible?”
“Because he was my father’s father. Is there something wrong?”
She stammered. “Thomas Cassidy was married to my great-aunt. They had no children, so I don’t understand…”
“Obviously, my grandmother and your great-aunt were not the same person,” he confided with apparent amusement.
“Oh. Of course.” She nodded slowly. “I’m sorry, it’s just that I wasn’t aware that Thomas had been married before he married Aunt Leila.”
“He hadn’t been, as far as I know,” the young man told her. “From what I understand, he and my grandmother never married.”
“What?” Abby exclaimed, thinking of the portrait of the serious-looking Thomas that stood on Aunt Leila’s bedside table. “Why, whoever would have guessed?”
“My mother told me that my father had said that his mother was a stage actress, from Chicago,” Drew told her as they walked toward the back of the house. “The story goes that my grandfather was head over heels in love with her, but she refused to give up the stage to marry him. They quarreled, and he left Chicago for some trip or other. Apparently, by the time he returned, she had left the city— pregnant with my father, though, of course, Thomas couldn’t have known that—to go to stay with her sister in Dayton, Ohio. Apparently, sometime later, my grandmother relented and sought Thomas to let him know that he had a son, but by that time, he had married and settled down. I guess she had too much pride to come knocking on his door. Or so goes the story as related by my mother.”
“And Thomas never knew he had a son…”
“No. He never did.”
“How sad.” Abby shook her head. “Then your father never knew his father.”
“Apparently not. My father died when I was very young, so I never really knew him, either.”
“And your mother?”
“I’m not certain. I haven’t seen or heard from her in many years.” Then, as if to provide some explanation, he added, “I’m afraid things fell apart for my mother after my dad died. I was in foster care for many years.”
“I’m sorry,” Abby said. “Do you have sisters, brothers?”
“I was an only child.”
“I know exactly how you feel.” Abby sighed, feeling a sudden kinship with this stranger. “My parents died ten years ago. I was an only child, too.”
“Then you know what it feels like to have absolutely no one.” His eyes flickered, and he looked away, down toward the carriage house.
“I do.” She nodded, then corrected herself, thinking of Belle and Naomi and the world of love that had begun to envelop her since she had come to Primrose. “At least, I did. I can’t say that I feel quite so alone as I once did.”
“I’m glad for you,” he said with seeming sincerity.
“Would you like to see the house?” she offered.
“Would I ever! But, really, Miss McKenna…”
“Abby.”
“That’s very generous of you, Abby, but really, I would not want to impose.”
“Are you kidding? We’re practically related. Come on, Drew.” She gestured for him to follow her toward the back porch. “We’ll give you the downstairs tour and a cup of coffee. I’m afraid the upstairs is pretty well disrupted right now.”
They stepped into the kitchen, and Drew looked around as if studying every corner and cranny.
“I wasn’t back in this part of the house when I was here as a child,” he told her. “Just in the front hallway.”
“Looks pretty much like any kitchen built in the mid- to late eighteen hundreds,” Abby noted. “Give me a second, I’ll throw a pot of coffee on.”
“Abby, don’t go to any trouble.”
“Don’t be silly, it will only take a second.” She filled the pot with water and poured it unceremoniously into the top of the coffee maker. “What brings you to Primrose? Obviously, you wanted to see the house, but, I mean, why now, after all these years?”
“I was passing through the Raleigh-Durham area on business.”
“What business are you in?”
“I sell athletic equipment to colleges. I made a stop at Duke, looked at the map, and saw that Primrose was just a few hours away, and I thought, what the heck. I sure didn’t expect to find family here… well, not family, I realize that, but…”
“I know exactly what you mean,” Abby said to ease his discomfort. “Now, Drew Cassidy, how do you take your coffee?”
Before he could answer, a low growl followed by a shrill bark emitted from the end of the short hallway leading to the morning room.
“Oh, Meri, it’s okay,” Abby called over her shoulder. The dog proceeded with the greatest of caution toward the stranger, grumbling all the while, even while she sniffed with deliberation at the fingers of the hand he held out to her. When Drew attempted to pet her, she snapped and fled with a yelp back down the hallway.
“Meri, you can be so rude sometimes,” Abby called after the little dog. “Did she bite you?”
“No, no.” He tried to smile. “I think she just wanted to assert her authority. Little dogs do that sometimes. I think maybe it makes them feel like big dogs.”
“She normally doesn’t do such things.” Abby frowned. “I hope she’s not going to turn snappish. We haven’t had her but a few months. And she’s very protective of Belle.”
“Belle?”
“Belle Matthews,” Abby explained as she refilled an empty sugar bowl and set it on the table. “She was Aunt Leila’s best friend for years. She lives here with me.”
“I see.” He nodded.
“She’s a lively old sprite, I must tell you.” Abby searched in the refrigerator for the cream, which had managed to become lost behind a bowl of pudding. Belle had apparently sought and found a second dessert after lunch.
“I’m sure you appreciate the company.” Drew watched as Abby poured a cup of coffee and offered it to him.
“I do,” she agreed. “Well, if you’ll come this way, we’ll begin the two-dollar tour.”
Abby led the way from the kitchen through the swinging door to the butler’s pantry which opened t
o the dining room.
“This is lovely,” Drew noted. “So many beautiful old things…”
“I doubt much has changed since the first Cassidys moved in,” Abby said.
“That’s quite a collection of silver,” he noted, nodding in the direction of the sideboard. “Don’t you think you might be pushing your luck, leaving it all out in the open, in full view of the window?”
“Normally, most of it is in the sideboard, rather than on top of it,” she told him, “but I did some polishing a few nights back and just didn’t get things put back.”
“Well, you could be inviting a theft. Anyone looking through that window”—he nodded to their left—“would be blinded by all this.” Drew gestured toward the row of gleaming bowls and pitchers and candle holders.
“I never thought about it.” Abby shrugged. “The last burglary in Primrose proper was, let me see, I think Colin said it was about four years ago.”
“Colin?”
“The chief of police.” Abby pointed toward Cove Road. “He lives across the street.”
“The police chief lives across the street?” he repeated.
“Yes. In Belle’s old house.”
“Well. That’s… convenient.”
“It is. He and his wife are close friends of ours. Mine and Belle’s. They took very good care of Belle between the time Aunt Leila died and the time I arrived in Primrose.”
“Well, that’s all well and good. But I’d still put those away. You never know who might be poking around.”
“Maybe you’re right,” she said.
She led him into the hallway, and he stood very still for a long moment before seeming to position himself inside the front door, as if he had just entered the house. She watched him, puzzled. A frown of confusion passed across his face. “Is something wrong?” she asked.
“What? Oh, no. No. Of course not. Everything seems so different, that’s all, from the way I remember it.”
“Well, you were only… how old did you say you were when your mother brought you here?”
“Three or four, I guess. Still, I just seemed to recall…” He appeared to be struggling with something, looking to his left, toward the wall where the small marble-topped table stood. “But I’m sure you’re right, of course. Things always seem so different when you’re small. I’m sure that’s it.”
“This is the music room.” She gestured for him to follow her to the left. “Aunt Leila’s baby grand. Which she played for half an hour every morning. For Thomas. Even after he died.”
“And through there?” Drew seemed anxious now to continue the tour.
“Thomas’s study.” Abby slid open the pocket doors.
Drew followed her into the room, his eyes darting around as if searching for something before coming to rest on the massive desk.
“Doesn’t much fit the image of the adventurer, does it?” Drew noted. “Looks more like the room of a college professor. Or a lawyer.”
“By the time he settled down and married Aunt Leila, Thomas had apparently lost his wanderlust. So the story goes.” Abby smiled. “Though I’ve often wondered if that was completely true.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Well, I don’t know that anyone but a consummate adventurer could have written these.”
Abby opened one of the glass-doored cabinets and removed a stack of paperback books.
"The Treasure Seekers.” Abby handed him the books and gestured for him to sit at the desk. “Are you familiar with the series?”
“Of course.” He took them from her hands. “My grandfather wrote these books.”
“He surely did.” She smiled.
“Abby, could I have a few minutes to look at these?”
“Certainly. I’ll get you a refill,” she told him as she took his cup and headed off toward the back of the house.
What a perfectly odd turn of events, she thought. And what a tragically romantic story. As she poured coffee into his cup, she tried to imagine the mysterious woman who had mourned the loss of her beloved Thomas while bravely raising their love child alone.
“These are wonderful stories,” Drew told her when she placed the mug on the desk blotter. “Is this the entire set?”
“There may be a few others. I’m not certain.”
“Where were they?”
“Excuse me?”
“Where were they? In the room.”
“On the third shelf, second cabinet. Why?”
“I just thought, if there were others, they’d be in the same place.”
“Those were the only ones on the shelf.”
“Where do you suppose he got his ideas?” Drew fanned through the stack, reading the titles aloud. "The Silver Saddle. The Golden Griffin. The Tears of the Maiden.”
“Well, there is a school of thought that holds that each book was written around an element of truth. That is, that Thomas wove his real-life adventures into his stories. And that he even wrote about treasures he found but did not take.”
“How could you find a treasure but not take it?”
“Well, a few years ago, someone claimed to have found a sunken ship off the coast of Georgia by following the clues in one of Thomas’s books. The story was that Thomas had located the ship back in the thirties but did not have the resources to raise it. How true that is, only Thomas would know.”
“If these books had been written about treasures Thomas had found, where do you suppose they would be? The treasures, I mean.” He sifted back through the books and held one up. “The Tears of the Maiden. Look at the size of the pearls on the cover, Abby. They look like hens’ eggs. Do you know what one pearl that big would be worth?”
“A small fortune, I’m sure.” she laughed. “Unfortunately, if in fact he ever found them, he kept it strictly to himself. Or, at the very least, he didn’t leave any clues for me to follow. Are you ready for the rest of the tour?”
“Have you looked for any?”
“Any what?”
“Clues.”
“Of course not.”
“Then how do you know there aren’t any?”
“I guess if there was such a thing, Aunt Leila would have told me years ago. Are you ready to move on?”
Drew hesitated for a moment, then stacked the books neatly on the edge of the desk, picked up his cup, and followed her out of the room. As she slid the pocket doors back across the doorway, he asked, “You always keep the study closed up like that?”
“Keeping the room closed up keeps the dust down.” She smiled as she crossed the foyer. “This was Aunt Leila’s parlor, where she entertained her lady friends at tea.”
“Is that her? Your great-aunt?” Drew gestured to the portrait over the mantel.
“No, that was her mother, my great-great-grandmother. Serena Dunham.”
“Abigail, who on earth are you talking to?” Belle called out from the morning room.
“Oh, she’s awake. Come meet Belle, Drew.” Abby motioned for him to follow her. “Belle, you’ll never believe this. Guess who this is.”
Belle’s eyes narrowed as they settled on Drew’s face and lingered for a long minute.
“I am sure I do not know,” she said pointedly.
“Belle.” Abby walked all the way into the room. “This is Drew Cassidy.”
"Cassidy, you say?” Belle arched an eyebrow.
“Yes. As in Thomas Cassidy.” Abby’s eyes twinkled, the scandalous story bubbling within her. “Belle, wait till you hear. Drew is Thomas’s grandson.”
“Oh, is he now?” Belle’s eyes narrowed a notch further. “Is he indeed?”
“His grandmother was a stage actress who was from… where, Drew? Chicago, you said? Which is really a coincidence, when you think that Aunt Leila’s mother was a stage actress in Chicago at one time. Sometime before the turn of the century, I believe. Which would have been long before your grandmother…”
“What year was your father born?” Belle’s eyes were now the width of a strand of t
hread.
“I think it was maybe 1919 or so.”
“Really,” Belle said flatly.
Her blatant unfriendliness—her not-so-subtle skepticism—was making Drew uncomfortable and Abby annoyed.
“Belle and her husband, Granger, lived across the street for many years. They were very close to Aunt Leila and Thomas.” Abby sought to offer an explanation for Belle’s animosity.
“Then you knew my grandfather very well.”
“Oh, very well indeed,” Belle told him steadily, then turned her attention from him as if he were no longer there. “Abigail, do you think I might have my tea now?”
“Of course, Belle. Drew, would you like to join us?”
“No, no thank you. I’ve already taken far too much of your time.” He looked at his watch. “It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Matthews.”
Belle appeared not to have heard.
“I’m going to walk Drew out,” Abby told Belle, “and when I come back, I’ll make your tea.”
Belle dismissed them with a click of the remote control. “I’m really sorry, Drew,” Abby told him as they went through the front door. “I cannot imagine what got into Belle. She’s usually much more gracious.”
“Well, maybe she’s having a grumpy day,” he said pleasantly. “At her age, she’s entitled.”
“Well, I would have expected her to have at least been polite to the grandchild of an old friend.”
They walked to his car, which was parked at the end of Cove Road.
“Well, you know, it may have come as a greater shock to her than it did to you, finding out that Thomas had a grandson,” Drew told her. “After all, you never knew him, and he was her friend. And your aunt was her best friend, right?”
Abby nodded.
“Well, then, there you go.” He held his hands out in front of him as if holding the explanation before her. “I’m sure she felt disloyal to your aunt’s memory just by having me in the house.”
“You think so?”
“I’m sure that’s it.”
“Well, I hope she gets over it,” Abby told him, “because I’d like you to stop back. It must be like finding a missing piece of yourself, coming to this house, sitting at your grandfather’s desk.”
“Yes. That’s it exactly. Thank you for understanding,” He had brightened. “And for letting me see my grandfather’s books.” He shook his head slowly, as if awed by the experience.
Carolina Mist Page 19
