by Pat Warren
“You didn’t tell me you were going to Nantucket. I could have taken off a couple days and gone with you.”
She’d known for some time that Craig was interested in her. He’d asked her out several times even before the ink had dried on her divorce papers. But Briana had told him she didn’t want to ruin their friendship by trying to make something more of their relationship. Craig had accepted that good-naturedly and they’d remained casual friends.
It had been Craig who’d somehow learned of the shooting and been there at the hospital during those horrible hours. He’d been wonderful, taking care of notifying people and making the arrangements she’d been too shattered to handle. In the four months since, he’d called frequently, as a friend might, to check on her. However, recently he’d resumed what could only be a more dogged personal pursuit. In coming to Nantucket, she’d hoped to put some distance between them so he’d get the message that she simply wasn’t interested. He’d been kind and helpful and she didn’t want to hurt him with a blunt rejection, but she also knew they had no romantic future together.
“Coming here was kind of a quick decision. Mom probably told you that my grandfather has Alzheimer’s and had to go into a nursing home. He needed someone to look after his house and I felt I needed some time alone. So here I am.” That should be clear enough, Briana thought.
“I’ve never been to Nantucket, but I hear it’s a great place to visit.”
If he was fishing for an invitation, he would be disappointed. “Yes, it is, but it’s really crowded during the summer. I much prefer the off-season, the fall and winter.”
“Surely you’ll be back before the leaves fall.”
Briana found herself frowning. “I really don’t have any definite plans, Craig. I have to take things one day at a time.”
“Of course you do. Are you sure you’re all right? You don’t sound like yourself.”
Her annoyance rising, Briana got up and walked to the window, trailing the phone cord. “I’m fine, really.” She could see Slade stretched out on a lawn chair in the side yard next door, wearing only shorts, his eyes closed. Was he sleeping or passed out again? she wondered.
Craig must have caught the irritation in Briana’s voice and decided to back off. “Good. I’m glad to hear it. I’ll talk to you when you get back, okay?”
“Right. Thanks for calling.” Briana hung up the phone, relieved that Craig hadn’t been more persistent. If there was no chemistry, there simply was no reason to pursue a relationship beyond friendship, hoping something magical would happen. Boyishly handsome, a beautiful dresser, and apparently with plenty of money, Craig had his pick of any number of women. She wished he’d find one and soon.
Curiosity drew Briana back to the window. She saw Slade slip on a pair of sunglasses and pick up a book from the grass. She couldn’t make out the tide, but it was an oversized hardcover. As she watched, he grabbed a tall glass filled with orange liquid and ice cubes. Straight orange juice or laced with vodka? For his sake, she hoped he’d skipped the hard stuff.
Checking her packages, she put the food in the fridge and left the rest on the table. It was too nice a day to stay indoors. Remembering what she’d talked about with Irma, staying in Nantucket awhile and fixing up the house while letting her emotions settle, she decided there was no time like the present to get started.
Changing out of her linen slacks and silk blouse into old cutoff jeans shorts and her comfortably worn college sweatshirt minus sleeves, Briana made a mental list of things to do. She’d put off cleaning the inside until tomorrow so she could get an early start. Today she’d check Gramp’s garage and see what he had and what she might need to buy to fix up the exterior.
She knew there was a ladder in the garage. She also knew she was wary of heights. Maybe she’d call a roofing company to come out. She’d probably need a carpenter to make sure the windows and doors weren’t warped, someone who could also fix the gate on the fence. Later, she’d clear out the flower beds, weed the area, maybe get some rich soil to mix in before adding some new plants.
Tying her somewhat beat-up canvas sneakers, Briana felt pleased with her plan. Keeping busy, that was the answer. Seeing progress each day and feeling a sense of accomplishment, something she hadn’t experienced in quite some time. She loved her photography, but she couldn’t seem to make herself pick up a camera since the day Bobby died.
Photography had become both her passion and her career, one following on the heels of the other. She’d put together her first book of photos as a lark, for her own pleasure. Then a friend she’d showed it to had urged her to send it to a New York agent she knew. To Briana’s surprise, Jocelyn Banks had loved her work and sold it to a publisher almost immediately.
That book had been published two years ago under the title Manhattan Musings, and been well received, if not spectacularly so. Now she was contracted for another and had deadlines, restrictions, and requirements, diluting some of the pleasure. She’d been working on that, centered around Boston, when her life had changed forever. After Bobby’s death, she’d had Jocelyn ask for and get an indefinite extension. She’d go back to her work one day, Briana supposed. But for now, she needed to do something less artistic and more physically tiring.
At the back of the garage, she found several paint buckets, a few with remnants all but dried up in the bottom, one in gray and another in white, plus a couple of smaller cans. Gramp had probably kept them for touch-ups. The brushes were sitting in some coagulated liquid and too far gone to reuse. Finding a plastic trash bag, she tossed in everything she couldn’t use, wound on a twist-tie, and hauled it out to the can at the fence line.
Taking her time, Briana wrote out a shopping list, then circled the house to determine where she should begin. The east side that bordered Jeremy’s place was the worst, probably because the wind and rain hit there the hardest, and the sun baked it the longest. She carried the five-foot ladder, the only one she found, out to that side, propped it open, and steadied it on the uneven ground. This was about as high as she felt comfortable climbing. She’d worry about the uppermost part later. With a metal scraper she’d found in hand, she climbed halfway up and went to work grating off the loose paint.
Briana worked slowly, enjoying the warmth of the sun and the sheer effort of working muscles too long neglected. She might be sore later, but it felt good now. After she finished the first section, she went in for the bottled water she kept in the fridge and took a long drink. Outside once more, she set the water on the grass before starting on the second section.
Working on a particularly stubborn bubble of old, dried paint, she hoped that the fall rains would hold off until the job was completed. Then it could storm all it wanted while she remodeled inside.
September was when the rainy season usually began in Nantucket, often lasting for weeks, with occasionally severe storms. Because this had been the pattern for decades, most of the homes were built to be sturdy enough to withstand almost any weather. However, if she planned to linger past the tourist season, she’d best return to her Boston town house and pack up some of her things to have shipped over by ferry.
Briana was aware that she had a strong nesting instinct. After all the moving around, the many places she’d lived, she needed her own things around her to feel at home. She had no plans to sell the town house and call Nantucket her permanent home, not yet at least. Bereavement advisors always said that it was usually a mistake to make large changes in lifestyle for at least the first year after a death in the family.
Fortunately, money wasn’t a worry. She had a good income from a trust fund left by her maternal grandparents, the principal left untouched. And now she had Robert’s generous insurance payoff, since he hadn’t bothered to change beneficiaries after the divorce. That unexpected inheritance she hadn’t wanted to touch, merely depositing the check in the bank and putting off deciding what to do with it. She couldn’t help feeling she didn’t deserve Robert’s money since she was no longer his wife and ha
dn’t been for three years.
When she’d scraped as far as she could reach, Briana climbed down and studied the decorative shutter on the window next to the ladder. It was attached with several screws that had been painted over. After wrestling with the porch shutters, she wasn’t anxious to attack this one, but it had to be done. Taking another swallow of water, she stood contemplating the shutter, wondering how best to go about the chore.
“I can help you with that,” said a deep voice behind her.
Briana turned and looked up at her neighbor. He was wearing dark sunglasses and baggy, fire-engine red shorts, his bare feet planted in the soft grass. A good head taller than she, his chest was broad, muscular, and covered with dark hair. In one hand, he held a glass filled with orange liquid and ice cubes. Was the man ever without a drink in his hand?
“Thanks, but I think I can manage.”
Slade took a sip of the glass he’d recently refilled, enormously glad that his headache was gone. He glanced at the shutter, then back at her. “That’s bigger than the ones on the porch, heavier, too.” He reached up and scraped a thumbnail over the painted screw. “Whoever painted this last didn’t do a very good job.”
Briana had to agree. “My grandfather fell and broke his hip a while back and didn’t climb ladders after his surgery. I don’t know who he hired.”
“Not a professional.” Slade set his glass on the ground and took hold of the shutter, tugging at it, testing the tightness. “This baby’s really up there.”
Briana sighed. She’d hoped she could do the job herself, not having to rely on others. “My friend on the corner knows a handyman. I’ll get his number.” She bent to pick up her scraper and went to work.
“Like I said, I can help.”
Stopping, Briana turned to him, wondering why he was offering his services, wishing he’d remove his sunglasses so she could see his eyes.
She wasn’t a poker player, he’d wager. Her face gave away her curiosity. Frankly, Slade wasn’t certain himself why he’d come out to lend a hand after watching her from the porch. Maybe it was as simple as needing something to do. His whole life, he’d never been one to sit around. He was going stir-crazy inside his father’s perfect house.
Slade inclined his head toward the brick house next door. “Not much needs doing over there. Place is like some ad in House Beautiful. I’m used to working with my hands, used to hard work and long hours.”
Deliberately, Briana glanced at his glass, then back to his eyes, letting the look reveal her doubts about his drinking interfering with his work.
He supposed he deserved her mistrust, Slade thought as he picked up his glass. After all, she had run across him passed out at midday. “This is straight orange juice. I stopped drinking.”
She raised a questioning brow. “Really? Just like that?”
Shuffling his bare feet, Slade ran a hand along the back of his neck, unused to having to explain himself. Damned if he knew why he was bothering now. “Yeah. I started just like that and now I quit just like that.”
Skeptical, she looked away without commenting.
She didn’t believe him, he could tell. Why in hell was he trying to make her see, to understand? Was it the alcohol still lingering in his system? And how could he explain something he didn’t fully understand himself? “Look, I wasn’t just drinking yesterday to be drinking.”
Briana had gone back to her scraping, wielding the hand tool quite well for a novice. She turned back, waiting.
Again, he was reminded of her uncanny resemblance to Rachel, the way she held her head, the unspoken question in her brown eyes. He rubbed the back of his neck, inexplicably wanting her to see—wanting just one person—to know what drove him. “Maybe you don’t know what it’s like to want more than anything in the world to forget something for just a little while.”
Briana’s face changed, closing down. “Yes, I do.” Did he think he was the only one who needed to forget something hurtful in his past? “But I don’t happen to think alcohol’s the answer to pain.”
Slade’s mouth became a thin, angry line. “Well, bully for you. And exactly who appointed you judge and jury for the rest of us imperfect souls?” Tossing the melted cubes and juice on the ground, he marched to his porch and disappeared inside.
Lowering her head, Briana let out a long breath along with her misplaced anger. He was right. She had no business judging him. He wasn’t the one she was angry with, either.
It was the fates. Or maybe God himself for taking her child and leaving her so very empty.
Knowing she could get no more done today, Briana left the ladder where it was and went inside.
Chapter Three
It took Slade a full two minutes of steadily staring inside his refrigerator at the cans of beer to realize he didn’t want one. Like Pavlov’s trained dog, he’d stormed inside and yanked open the door, intending to show that sanctimonious broad next door that she was right as rain. Yes, sir, she’d called it. He’d get roaring drunk and march over there and pass out on her lawn for good measure. If you had the name, you might as well have the game.
Instead, he slowly closed the refrigerator door, disgusted with himself and his juvenile overreaction. What the hell was happening to him lately?
He’d been acting out of character ever since he’d stepped off the plane in Nantucket, defensive and moody, drinking to forget his problems, something he’d never done before. He’d been made uneasy by Jeremy’s neighbors, their looks of curiosity and interest as he’d walked through town and shopped in the market annoying him. Who’s this newcomer who claimed to be the son of the late, great Jeremy C. Slade? they seemed to ask. A private man, he felt he owed them no explanation. Nor did he have one to give.
In direct contrast, he’d heard the awed respect in their voices at the funeral home when they’d filed past his father’s closed casket. What had Jeremy done to earn such esteem? Had the looks they’d given him, the ones that seemed to say loud and clear that the son would have a long way to go to measure up to the father, been only in his imagination?
Thrusting his hands into the pockets of his shorts, Slade walked into the large living room with its wall of windows that looked out on the sea opposite the floor-to-ceiling fieldstone fireplace. He strolled over to the raised brick hearth and stared up at a painting he’d never seen until the day he’d arrived on the island.
A dark-haired boy about five years old sat atop a Shetland pony in a fenced corral. It was a summer scene, very simple, with blue sky, puffy white clouds, and high, green mountains in the background. On the child’s face was a look that could only be described as pure joy as he leaned forward slightly, his small hand buried in the pony’s shaggy mane.
Slade remembered that pony. His father’s boss, the man who owned the electronics firm Jeremy Slade had worked for, had had a big ranch with lots of horses not far from the small California town where they’d been living. He’d also had a son just a little older than Slade and had often invited Jeremy’s family over for barbecues. His father had been so proud that Slade hadn’t been a bit afraid of the pony, had in fact loved every minute of riding him. He recalled begging his father to buy him a pony, too, unaware at five that their residential neighborhood was no place for a horse.
“One day,” Jeremy had promised, “I’ll get you a horse all your own.” But he never had. Just one of many broken promises, including the one that had hurt the most: “I’ll always be here for you, son.”
Walking to the window, Slade watched the afternoon sun highlight a boat with billowing yellow sails bobbing along on the waves. The scene could have been a picture postcard, and probably had been. He could readily see why his dad had chosen this place to live. What he couldn’t figure out, had never been able to understand, was why Jeremy had suddenly taken off, leaving him and his mother, just like that.
Turning, he gazed around his father’s perfect house with carpeting thick enough to sink into, the kind of furniture he’d seen before only in model
homes and hotel lobbies, and artwork undoubtedly worth a frigging fortune.
There wasn’t one damn thing left to do, not a wall to repaint or a doorknob to repair or a dust mote that dared enter. He who’d never known a stable home, who’d scarcely lived in one place for longer than a year, ought to be grateful, Slade thought. This was a house such as he hadn’t figured in his wildest dreams he’d ever live in—and it was all his.
The trouble was, he didn’t feel he deserved this house, or the paintings, or even the big-bucks bank account. His father hadn’t loved him enough to stay, to help raise him, to guide his formative years. So why should he accept all this from him now?
Slade had systematically schooled himself through the years to hate the man who’d left him and Barbara high and dry like a sailboat twisting in the wind without a rudder. He’d convinced himself the man didn’t deserve his absentee love for what he’d done. He’d told himself repeatedly to stop thinking of Jeremy Slade, to stop hoping he’d return one day, to forget him and put him out of mind. It was so much easier to hate than to hurt.
It hadn’t worked. Denial, the AA people were so fond of saying, is a nice place to visit, but no place to take up permanent residence.
What to do now? was the question.
Absently, he strolled to the cut glass bowl on the table and reached for a lemon drop, popping it in his mouth. He didn’t really want to go back to California to live among the memories that kept him awake nights. He could sell everything here and move to … to … where? He’d visited a lot of places, but had never particularly longed to live in any one of them.
Drawing in a deep breath, he strolled through the rooms aimlessly. He could stay here, he supposed. Nantucket was about as beautiful a place to live as any he’d seen. The way the lawyer had explained things, with this inheritance, Slade would never have to work again, especially if he was prudent about selling his father’s remaining paintings, all carefully stacked in Jeremy’s storage room upstairs. They’d be even more valuable once the news spread throughout the art world that Jeremy had died.
