by Peggy Jaeger
I stood with my empty bowl in my hand and walked toward the sink. “Shelby said I could try something, but it might do more harm than good in the long run. His kidneys and liver are failing, which means the meds might get clogged in them and cause him more problems. I don’t want that. He’s suffering enough as it is.” I sighed. “This is way more difficult than I expected.”
Maureen wrapped her arms around my waist from behind me and laid her head on my shoulder. “You’ve been together a long time.” Her warm, comforting breath wafted across my neck.
“Most of my adult life. I don’t know what I’ll do when he dies. The house is going to be so…empty and cold. God, I hate this.”
“Excuse me.” McLachlan Frayne stood in the doorway, a bowl and a glass in his hands. “I’m sorry to interrupt. I didn’t know if I should leave these”—he held up his hands—“on the table or bring them here.”
Mo unwove her hands from around me, and, with a smile, moved to him, saying, “You can leave them on the table in the future. No need to bus your own.”
Her easy smile drew one from him as his gaze went from her face to mine. His lips took their time going back to their normal, full line. “Mrs. Mulvaney.”
“Cathy’s fine.” I swiped at an errant tear, took a composing breath, and tried to place a smile on my face. “Taking a break from your research?”
I cringed on the inside. Duh! Of course he was. Talk about stating the obvious.
“Just for lunch. I need to get back to the museum in a bit.”
Maureen placed a hand at my back and then kissed my cheek. “I’ve got work to do. I’ll see you when I see you,” she said.
“Love you.” I pursed my lips and blew her a kiss.
“Love you more,” she tossed over her shoulder as she made her way to the dining room. She bobbed Frayne a quick nod.
“Are you finding everything you need at the museum?” I asked him when we were alone. “You haven’t texted me, so I figured you were occupying your time with the public records.”
He slid his hands into his well-worn jeans pockets and rocked back a bit on his sneakered feet. Today’s pullover was a deep blue V-neck, a swatch of white peeking up along the collar. He and Maureen could have been cut from the same bolt of comfort-wear fabric. Dark, purple splotches sat under his bottom lashes.
“I have been. There’s a great deal of info in those files, some of which I haven’t seen published elsewhere. It’s been beneficial to help me detail a historical timeline.”
“I meant to ask you yesterday—why Josiah Heaven?” I tugged my coat from the back of Maureen’s kitchen chair and slipped it on. “Why did you choose him to write about? He’s not exactly an important historical figure, or even well known. How did you discover him?”
A tiny lift of his lips, and his entire expression changed. Softened. The clouds in his eyes billowed away, replaced by something an awful lot like subdued animation. “I have my agent to thank for that. She attended a wedding here a few months ago. Stayed here at the inn, in fact. Marci—Marci Edgerton’s her name—fell in love with the town and asked about its history. When she heard about the founder, she thought he might be someone I’d like to write about. She knows I tend to gravitate toward historical figures. Plus, I’ve been searching for a new project. After looking into him, I told her she was right.”
“And you got the commission to do so?”
He nodded.
“Well, I know the members of the historical society are giddy you’re here. They love talking up old Josiah to anyone, anytime. And those public files are interesting reading, a fact I have personal knowledge of. I had to do enough book reports and papers on our town when I was in school. Lots of small-town snippets about the people who came before us and how they lived and survived day to day. You’ll get lots of info from the records. While it all looks mundane, it’s actually a fairly accurate portrayal of a small, tightly knit New England community.”
Frayne nodded. “I think I’ll be bothering you for access to the personal files soon, though.”
For the second time in as many minutes, I cringed. With two court dates and a custody trial set to start next week, my available free time was going to be severely limited. For the hundredth time, I cursed my role as keeper of the key. It would be rude to tell Frayne that, though. It wasn’t his fault I’d been put in the position.
He cocked his head to one side, those pale, haunted eyes regarding me with a questioning stare. “What?” he asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“What’s wrong?”
“What do you mean?”
He took a few steps closer, his gaze trained on my face. The feeling of being a gazelle with a hungry lion stalking me crashed across my brain, which was—of course—a ridiculous analogy.
“You seem a little…troubled, by my saying that.”
“Not troubled, no.”
“But something?”
He stopped less than a foot in front of me, his entire stance radiating a calm and unthreatening attitude. His breathing was soft and steady and slow. But his eyes, his eyes were another story entirely. Inquisitive. Searching. Perceptive. He’d been able to read my expression perfectly, and I knew I had a great poker face.
The lawyer in my DNA wanted to redirect or deflect the conversation. “It’s nothing. I just have a great deal of work-related things in the next few weeks I’m unable to move around. They’ve been scheduled for some time and can’t be changed. It would help if we had an appointed time for me to let you into the personal archives. A time I’m not needed elsewhere.”
“Makes sense. I can imagine how busy your days are between your work and your family. What’s your schedule look like this weekend? Are you free at all?”
“I’ve got a wedding on Saturday.”
Maureen strode back into the kitchen, a tray laden with empty bowls gripped in her hands.
“Mo, what time’s Colleen’s wedding tomorrow? I forget.”
“Ceremony at one, reception right after.” She zoomed back out of the room after placing the tray on a counter.
“I’ll be free after two, then,” I told Frayne.
“You’re not staying for the party?” A tiny groove settled between his eyebrows.
“Sometimes I do, but not tomorrow. Will the time work for you?”
His questioning stare deepened. “Yeah, it’s…it’s fine.”
I got the distinct impression he wanted to press me. For whatever reason, he decided not to. I checked my watch and said, “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, then, when I’m done. Now, I’m sorry, but I’ve gotta run. I have clients this afternoon, and I need a few minutes to prep.” I put out my hand to shake his goodbye.
Frayne studied it for a moment, shot his gaze back up to my eyes, and then back down to my hand. With a tiny shake of his head, which made his shaggy hair sway, he took it. Like mine had the day before, his body stilled as soon as we touched.
I was raised to be a practical, commonsense, logical New England woman. I didn’t believe in fairies, mesmerism, or magic. I wasn’t given to flights of fancy, I didn’t read stuff about the paranormal, and I thought scary movies were a silly waste of time, better spent on reading a good book or playing the piano. But I swore on Nanny’s 120-year-old Bible, Frayne had somehow cast a spell of immobility on me. I knew—knew—I had to move, to get back to work. The message wasn’t making its way from my brain to my feet, though, and the only reason I could give was Frayne somehow had entranced me with his warm touch and sad, haunted, questioning eyes.
Maureen’s helper, Sarah, burst into the kitchen laughing at someone she was talking to on her cell phone. The abrupt sound sparked a few of my muscles back to life, and with a little more vigor than I’d intended, I tugged my hand back, blinked a few times to focus, then turned and left him standing there.
I chose to ignore the fact my legs were shaking and my armpits were stress-sweating enough to require a blouse change. What I couldn’t disregard was the sight of my hands tremb
ling as I put my car into gear and peeled out of the inn’s driveway. Nor could I discount the surge of heat coiled in my belly like a live, splayed wire when Frayne’s hand circled mine, or the way his troubled eyes made me want to hug him close and give comfort of some kind. Any kind.
Ridiculous. It was simply ridiculous to feel this emotionally off kilter and discombobulated about a man I’d met barely a day ago.
Why then, I asked myself as I drove to my office, was I?
****
“Cassidy and Caleb, you two have weathered many storms, both legal and emotional, and have managed to survive by the sheer will of your love for one another.” I smiled at them. “Lesser individuals would have gone their separate ways long before now. Not you two. To see you both here today, surrounded by the people who love and support you the most, I know your love can withstand anything life throws at you. As your futures unfold and you’re tested again and again, as you will be, remember the strength of the love you’ve pledged to one another here today to help see you through whatever comes at you.”
“We will,” they vowed.
“I know you will. Well, then, by the legal power vested in me by the wonderful State of New Hampshire, I now pronounce you married for life, partners for eternity. Please seal your vows with your first married kiss. And make it a good one,” I added in a very loud stage whisper.
The audience filling the inn’s ballroom burst into laughter as the two handholding grooms grinned at one another. In a smooth motion I swear they’d rehearsed, Caleb grabbed his new husband and bent him backward over his arm, kissing him soundly amid the claps, whistles, and cheers of their guests.
Twenty minutes later, Maureen handed me my coat and a heavy shopping bag.
“What’s this?”
“Leftover stew for you and ground prime rib with rice, carrots, kale, and spinach for George. I figured he might be getting sick of chicken.”
“I don’t know what I’d do without you.” I pulled her into a hug, disregarding the flour-streaked apron adorning her trim frame. Today’s was a pink affair with an embroidered wedding cake on the bottom befitting the celebration going on in her ballroom, and the message Cake is my happy place written in Victorian script above it.
“You’d survive.” She chuckled as she patted my back. “But you’d be seriously food deprived.”
“Truth. I’ve got to get over to the museum. Frayne wants access to the subbasement, so there goes the rest of my afternoon.”
“Can’t one of the docents let him in and”—she shrugged—“babysit?”
“Unfortunately, no.” I sighed and buttoned up my coat. “There are times I really wish Daddy hadn’t advocated for me to take over his position. Plus, it would have been nice to have been asked if I even wanted it. But, no. He simply made another unilateral decision without telling anyone, like him and Mom moving and not letting us know until the last minute. And God, I hate how bitter I sound.”
Maureen’s gaze dropped to her hands. “I think we all deserve to be a little bitter, maybe you most of all, since you’re the one who was left holding all the pieces, and us, together.”
“I think Nanny was more responsible for that, than me.”
“She’s a rock, to be sure. A slightly kooky and theatrical one”—she rolled her eyes and grinned—“but she’s rock solid in the family glue department. And we’re lucky to have her in our lives, no matter how much trouble she gets into.”
“Less now, since she’s living at the home. At least I know I won’t be getting calls from Lucas informing me he’s holding her down at the police station on another civil disobedience charge.”
“There’s that.”
“I’d better get going. Thanks for this.” I lifted the bag and gave her cheek a kiss.
Chapter 5
The temperature had dropped a good twenty degrees from the day before. The whipping wind forced me to hold onto my hat while I trekked from the parking lot to the museum entrance.
Once inside, I shucked out of my outerwear as I sprinted down the stairs to the basement.
Frayne was alone at one of the computer workstations, sheets of paper and files scattered about the desk next to him.
I took a moment to observe him before announcing myself. Thick-lensed reading glasses perched on the very tip of his nose, a millimeter from falling from his face. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why that was so endearing, but it was. His hair fell over the collar of his shirt, today covered with a jet-black pullover. A tiny moth hole crossed over his bicep. The notion he needed someone looking out for him, caring for him, making him take care of himself, bounded through me.
The story Maureen related spilled back to me, and my heart sighed. I knew the emotional devastation losing loved ones could wreak, and since I was now aware of what had happened to Frayne’s family, I understood the perpetual grief in his eyes.
Another striking thing about Frayne was that for all his awkwardness, some might even say shy demeanor, he was an extremely attractive man, and the very fact I noticed it was astounding. I hadn’t looked at nor thought about another man in all the years of my marriage, even while Danny had been away for years on end on active duty.
The only man I’d ever loved, ever considered being with, ever looked at, was Danny Mulvaney. Picturing Mac Frayne as someone I could see myself getting to know on a purely personal and physical level was behavior so far out of my emotional wheelhouse it startled me.
“I’m sorry I kept you waiting.” I tossed my coat and bag on a chair “I came as soon as the ceremony ended.”
Frayne peered at me over the tops of his glasses through eyes a little unfocused, a little startled, and a whole lot of befuddled cute.
He blinked, and then his gaze swept from my face down to what Maureen calls my marriage duds. When I officiate, I pair a plain white silk blouse with a black double-breasted jacket and either a black A-line skirt or trousers, depending on the season. On one lapel of my jacket, I always wear a 14-karat-gold, single rose pin, gifted to me by Colleen, to symbolize the love and affection of the couples I marry.
With a quick flick of his hand, Frayne swiped the glasses from his face, and tucked one of the bows into the vee of his sweater. His gaze made its way up to my face again, and he cocked his head in a move I was coming to recognize signaled he was going to ask a question. “You didn’t stay for the reception?”
“Like I told you yesterday, sometimes I do, but most times I simply sign the paperwork, take a few photos with the happy couple, and then let them have their party. If I stayed at every wedding, I’d never get anything done on the weekends.”
“I’ve been to my share of weddings”—he stood and tilted his head to one side—“but I’ve never had to sign papers at one, other than my own. Are there that many people you know getting married that your weekends are typically so full?”
A grin split my face at his words. “They are when I’m performing the ceremonies.”
It took him a second, then the cloud of cute confusion cleared in his eyes. “You’re a wedding officiant?”
“Technically, I’m a justice of the peace. But yes, I officiate at weddings. I came here from Inn Heaven after performing a ceremony.”
“Well, that certainly explains it.” His lips twitched at the corners, and for a brief moment, an image of pressing my own against them burned quick and bright in my head. “I saw them setting up the ballroom for some kind of event before I left this morning. Your sister was everywhere.”
“I know that’s the truth because I’ve seen it for myself. Maureen is exceptionally organized, a trait that runs rampant in our family.”
His gaze swept down my attire again, the small grin tugging on his mouth, broadening. “I spotted another redhead in commando mode, too. She resembled you and Maureen.” His grin grew. “I’ve never actually seen someone bark orders before.”
“The barker was Colleen, my middle sister. She’s a wedding planner and was in charge of today’s event. I officia
te at a lot of her non-religious ceremonies.”
Frayne slid his hands back into his pockets. “Cathleen, Colleen, and Maureen?”
“My mother believed in keeping things simple and similar. Maureen had a twin named Eileen.”
“Had?”
“She…died. Breast cancer.”
His eyes widened. “Maureen doesn’t look like she’s out of college yet, and this was her twin?”
“Yes. It was a rare form. Less than a year from diagnosis to death.”
“My mother is a breast cancer survivor. I know how horrible the fight is. I’m sorry for your loss.”
Saying thank you when someone says those words always felt wrong, somehow, given the context, so I simply bobbed my head. “Have you found something you need from the subbasement?”
He blinked a few times at my abrupt subject change. “A bunch of things, actually, but the most important item is a birth certificate.”
I jangled the key to the subbasement in my hand. “Do you have the file numbers?”
“Yeah. Hang on a sec. I wrote them down.” He shuffled a few books and note pads around on the desk until he found an errant piece of paper. “Here they are.”
Before leaving, I pulled my cellphone from my purse and slipped it into my jacket pocket. Life with Nanny has taught me never to be more than an Instagran call away.
I led the way down the cast-iron circular staircase to the subbasement. I hadn’t been in the personal archives since taking over my keeper-of-the-keys duties—I was going to call it that forever, now—and I’d forgotten how deathly quiet it could be. And how creepy. What amounted to two stories below ground level, the staircase was lit only by the electric sconces on the wall guiding us downward. The sound of our shoes bounced and echoed off the metal gratings under our feet.
“It’s wicked spooky down here,” I said when we came to the bottom. “No outside noise. No windows. No people. It’s like a perfect tomb. If I ever got stuck down here, the silence alone would scare me into an early grave.”
“If I was a suspense or a horror writer, this would be a great setting to kill someone and then stash the body,” Frayne said, looking around the space. “With limited, keyed access and no foot traffic, it wouldn’t be discovered for a while. You could make as much noise or as much of a mess as you wanted and no one would know. The walls would absorb all the sounds of torture and screaming. We’re far enough underground the stench of decomp wouldn’t be noticeable. By the time the body was found, you’d be long gone. It’s kind of a perfect setup, actually.” He perused the area intensely, assessing the possibilities.
