“But you were still cautious.”
“Of course. I wasn’t going to take any chances. But Doc told Sam I was overreacting.”
I ground my teeth. I loved Doc, but there were times…
“I was so scared we’d lose the baby after all we’d been through, and we’d never be able to try again if it didn’t work. It cost so much. So I stewed, I fretted. I pushed Sam away. I was so worried something might go wrong that I didn’t want him near me.”
I stared at our intertwined fingers, unsure whether I wanted to know this much about my brother’s marriage.
“Sam couldn’t handle it. He started seeing someone.”
I definitely didn’t want to know this much.
“I don’t know who, but at least she wasn’t from Hum Harbour. I couldn’t have borne it if she was someone I knew, someone I saw every day.”
I swallowed the bad taste building at the back of my throat.
“That’s where he was when I had the miscarriage. That’s how come no one could get hold of him.”
If my brother had been in the kitchen I would have belted him in the nose, I was so angry about the way he’d treated his wife, my friend. He’d betrayed her. He’d betrayed all of us. Unable to sit quietly and take any more revelations I started collecting dishes.
“He feels so guilty,” Sasha continued. “He thinks it’s his fault everything happened. If he’d paid more attention to me, if he’d been home when the cramps started, he thinks he could have made sure Doc saved the baby.”
I wanted to scream: he’s right!
“If I hadn’t pushed Sam away he wouldn’t have been with that other woman in the first place. Don’t you see?”
“Is that why you’ve been so miserable? You think losing the baby is somehow your own fault?”
“Isn’t it?”
“No! Lori told me pregnancies like yours are notoriously unstable. No matter how careful you are, they often just don’t work. Doc telling you to ignore the clinic’s instructions wasn’t helpful, but there was nothing he, you or Sam could have done to prevent your tragedy.”
A tear traced down her cheek. “Sam said it was my fault.” She dropped her head into her hands.
“Well it wasn’t, and my brother is an idiot. I don’t know why you put up with him.” I left the dishes in a pile and pulled a chair close. My arms around her shoulders, I laid my head against hers and we cried.
It didn’t prove Sam hadn’t busted up Dunmaglass, but now that I knew Sam’s secret I realized it didn’t give him a motive to hurt me. The one Sam wanted to hurt most was Sam, and he was doing a knockdown super job at it. Drinking, lazing around the house, avoiding work, those were all self-destructive behaviors. Thanks to Andrew and this whole Doc situation, however, it appeared maybe Sam was finally coming out of his funk and taking his life back.
Please Lord, don’t let it be too late for Sam and Sasha.
23
It was going on ten by the time Sam and the fleet got back from fishing, and I went home.
Sheba was at the clinic until tomorrow. Dunmaglass was dark and empty. I flicked on every light, threw open every cupboard and closet door, to prove to myself no one was lurking upstairs or down.
The sudden blaze of light attracted Geoff, who leapt the rail and banged on my patio door. Once I pried my heart out of my throat, I slid open the door and invited him inside.
“Where have you been? Andrew told me what happened to the shop. Why didn’t you call me?”
Geoff’s over six feet, which makes him significantly taller than the other men in my life i.e. my brothers and my dad. The way he loomed over me, seething with pent up I-don’t-know-what, sent me scurrying to the safety of my kitchen.
“Would you like some tea?” I asked, filling the kettle.
“No. I want answers.”
I turned to plug the kettle into the stove and bumped into Geoff’s chest. Cold water sloshed out of the kettle’s spout, soaking the front of his shirt. He gasped and jumped back.
I kept the kettle between us. “Why are you so worked up? It wasn’t your place that got trashed.”
He sputtered. “Why am I worked up? Someone broke into your home. You could have been hurt. You could have been attacked in your sleep. You could have been killed.”
“Andrew figures whoever ransacked my shop did it while we were at the vet’s.”
“But he doesn’t know that for sure. Gailynn, don’t you grasp the seriousness of this?”
I waved the kettle threateningly. “Don’t treat me like an imbecile.”
“Then don’t act like one.”
The words hung between us…sizzled would be a more apt description, actually.
I set down the kettle very slowly. “You can leave the same way you came in.”
“Gailynn, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to call you an imbecile.”
“Well you did. Go.”
“I was frustrated. I was worried. I couldn’t find you, and no one knew where you were. Not Andrew. Not Lori.”
“You called my brother?” Until then I hadn’t thought I could get any madder.
“What was I supposed to think? You’d been gone for hours. You weren’t answering your phone. Your place was dark.”
“So you called my brother?”
“And Lori.”
As if that made it better? “You had no right treating me like a child and calling Andrew.”
“I was scared! I thought something had happened to you!”
“Well, nothing has. I’m fine. I had a nice supper with your sister and then I walked home. End of story. So now you can turn around and go home the way you came.”
“I don’t want to go home. I want—” He blew out a breath. “I need you to believe I did not mean what I said.”
“Then why did you say it?”
“Because I’m an imbecile.”
I felt the corners of my mouth twitch. “Yes, you are.”
“Will you forgive me?”
“Will you promise to never call my brother on me again?”
He did a three-finger salute and tried to look penitent.
The tension eased.
I felt more kindly disposed towards the worried doctor. “Would you like some tea? I could tell you what Sasha told me about my debaucherous brother.”
“Debauched, you mean. Yes, thanks.”
“You knew already?”
“Knew what?”
“That my brother’s been stepping out on your sister. Sasha says it’s over and Sam’s promised to never do it again, but I don’t think she’s sure whether to believe him, or not. Can a woman trust a man when he says something like that?”
“I think it depends on the man. Do you trust Sam?”
I hated to admit my uncertainty. “Normally I’d say maybe yes, but after what’s been going on in their lives…It’d take a very callous man not to be moved, wouldn’t it?”
“Tell me what’s been going on,” said Geoff.
So I did.
He sank into the couch and propped his socked feet on the coffee table beside mine. Geoff sighed when I’d told him all.
“You think that lets Sam and Sasha off the hook for Doc’s murder?” he asked.
“I want to. Shouldn’t I?”
“I don’t want to think them guilty any more than you do, but where does that leave us if we eliminate them from consideration?” He put his empty mug next to his feet.
“With Hum Harbour Holes. Ross, Mike or Bud killed Doc because he pulled out of the investment.”
Geoff wagged his head from side to side, as though weighing the idea’s validity. “Money’s always been a time honored motive for murder.”
“I vote for Ross,” I said.
“What have you got against Ross Murray?”
“He’s a compulsive gambler and a skirt chaser. And any man who’d marry a woman young enough to be his daughter is a letch as far as I’m concerned.”
“Don’t hold back, Gailynn. Be honest about how y
ou feel.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Can you tell me he’s an honorable, trustworthy man?”
“I don’t know the man well enough to make that kind of judgment.”
“Well, would you marry someone half your age?”
“That would be illegal.”
“You are being intentionally obtuse.”
He smiled at me. “Would I marry Rickie Murray, is that what you’re asking?”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear his answer. “Sure. Would you?”
“Not in a million years.”
“Why not? Rickie’s…” I let my hands drop in embarrassment. “I thought that’s what men look for in a wife.”
“When I look around Hum Harbour it strikes me Ross Murray is the only one who looks for that in a wife.”
“What are you looking for?”
He slid his arm along the back of the couch, angled himself to see me better. “Are you pumping me, Gailynn MacDonald?”
“I honestly want to know. If not beauty alone, how about beauty and brains, like Lori.”
“Now I know you’re pumping me. Remember that one time I took Lori to the prom? Believe me, one date with Lori Fisher was enough to last a lifetime.”
“Are you celibate then?”
His eyebrow quirked. “Yes I am. Are you?”
This wasn’t supposed to be about me. “Not that it’s any of your concern, but yes, I’m saving myself for marriage even though it’ll probably be someone like Dale McKenna. Don’t laugh.”
He wasn’t. “Dale McKenna?”
I plucked self-consciously at the lint on my jeans. “Well, I just think we’re doomed to marry each other since no one else will ever want us.”
“Don’t sell yourself short.”
“Now you sound like my mother.”
“You sure know how to cut a guy,” he said, hand to his heart.
I felt confused. “I didn’t mean it as an insult. I just meant it was a nurturing kind of thing my mother would say.”
“You’re making it worse.”
I picked up my mug, slurping down the last cold dregs of my tea. “Can we please change the subject?”
“Not yet. Do you really think Dale McKenna is the only man who would find you attractive? Don’t you see yourself when you look in the mirror?”
“Who do you think’s our most likely suspect?”
He tilted my chin with his fingertip. “Because when I look at you I see a very attractive woman.”
“Maybe we should consider an alternate theory of the crime.”
“Don’t you believe me?”
“What if Doc had some secret skeleton in his closet and someone decided to kill him out of revenge? Or, better still, what if someone was afraid Doc would expose their skeleton?”
“Will you believe this?”
He took my face between his hands and he kissed me. Just like that.
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to feel. My heart pounded, my fingertips tingled, of all things, and what I really wanted to do most at that very moment was lick my lips and savor the taste.
He slowly let me go. “Gailynn.”
I took our empty mugs to my little galley kitchen before I embarrassed myself. The clock on the stove said three minutes to midnight.
He sighed heavily and followed me. “I think you should stop worrying about who killed Doc and start worrying about your own safety.”
“I’m well aware this is serious business. I don’t know why you and my brother seem so convinced I’m unable to grasp something that simple.”
“I didn’t mean to imply that.”
“Of course not. But you do imply that every time you brush aside my thoughts.”
“A kiss is not brushing you aside.”
Then what was it? I watched my knuckles turn white as I gripped the edge of the stove. “It’s been a long day. Maybe it’s time we called it a night.”
“Gailynn, we need to talk about this.”
I felt close to tears. “Not now.”
“Are you crying? Have I made you cry? I didn’t mean—”
“Go home, Geoff.”
I felt his uncertainty, felt him watching me, heard him walk away. It wasn’t until the sliding door clicked shut that I turned away from the stove.
****
What was wrong with me? I’d just been kissed by the handsomest man in Hum Harbour and I couldn’t stop crying. Was I having some kind of breakdown?
I sat in my dark apartment, hugging my knees to my chest, sniffling and shivering. I was scaring myself. I’d been like this for over an hour. Maybe it had nothing to do with Geoff’s kiss at all. Maybe it was delayed reaction to Sheba’s poisoning and the break-in downstairs. Maybe I was a useless write-off, like my brothers thought. Maybe I was losing my mind.
I blew my nose, adding the wet tissue to the growing mountain beside me, and reached for the phone. I needed comfort. I needed assurance. I called Lori.
I woke her up, of course.
“Do you know what time it is?”
I blew my nose.
Her bed sheets rustled as though she sat up. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
“I can’t stop crying.”
“I can hear that, Gai. Have you been robbed again? Have you called the police?”
“Geoff kissed me.”
Silence.
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, usually when a man kisses you, you kiss him back if you liked it, or you slap his face if you didn’t,” she said tersely.
I blew my nose again.
“OK, Gailynn, what did you do?”
“I told him to go home.”
“Did he?”
I nodded, then said, “Yes,” since she obviously couldn’t see me.
“Then what’s the problem? Or is that the problem?”
“I don’t know what the problem is, that’s why I called you. I thought you could tell me what’s wrong.”
“Gailynn, have you been drinking?”
I gasped. “Of course not. Why would you think that?”
“Because you’re not making any sense.”
“I know. That’s what’s scaring me.” I sucked in a hic-coughy breath. “Lori, I want to knock down his door and beg him to kiss me again and that’s so awful.”
“It is a bit cheap, I’ll give you that. But I’m not sure it’s awful, unless, of course, you actually do it.”
“But he stole Doc’s practice from you. How can I want to kiss someone like that?”
“True. You’re being incredibly disloyal to find him attractive. I thought you were a better friend than that.”
She was teasing me, trying to lighten my mood. It didn’t help.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Gai, it was a simple little kiss, right? Not a marriage proposal? Then don’t sweat it. Chalk it up as another Gailynn MacDonald conquest and go to bed.”
Easy for her to say, she made conquests wherever she went. Me, I’d never had one my whole life, unless you counted the time Dale McKenna caught me behind the funeral parlor when I was eight.
“Gailynn, you’ve had a rough twenty-four hours. You’re exhausted, that’s why you’re not making any sense. Make yourself a cup of warm milk, drink every last drop and then tuck yourself into bed. You’ll be asleep in no time and everything will look better in the morning. Trust me. I’m a doctor, remember?”
“Lori?”
“Yes?”
“What does it feel like to be in love?”
For a minute, I thought she was going to hang up on me.
“Have you got anything stronger than warm milk in your house? Because now, you’re starting to scare me, Gailynn.”
“No. Is that how it feels? Frightening?”
“Are you afraid of Geoff? Is that what’s bothering you? You like him but you’re afraid he might be behind Doc’s murder?”
“Of course not. Should I be?”
“You know him better than I do, Gai.
What do you think?”
I didn’t know what I thought. That was my whole problem. I did what she advised, though, made myself some warm milk and crawled into bed and eventually I did fall asleep. But as for things looking better in the morning…?
24
Not quite.
Saturday morning, the day of Doc’s funeral, was miserably wet. Nova Scotia weather is like that: beautiful weather all week then everything goes to pot on the weekends. As I walked the beach, I spotted Geoff watching me from his deck. He didn’t join me, which I guess was wise on his part, but disappointing nonetheless.
Beneath him, the Hubris Heron’s back door stood wide-open allowing Mimi’s succulent aromas to drift seaward. Saturday mornings were big business at the Heron. Mimi cooked an incredible brunch and people even came from Truro to partake. My cousin would be occupied ’til mid-afternoon when she planned to close the restaurant and attend Doc’s funeral.
A few doors further along Main Street stood Hum Harbour Hardware. I could see the back lot with its stacks of lumber, and the forklift loading prefabricated trusses onto a flatbed truck. Mike was the only one allowed to operate the forklift. He’d be busy all morning, too, no doubt.
I trudged homeward, damp and treasureless. Although Lori’d promised to run me into town before noon to pick up Sheba I still had hours to wait. It was barely eight o’clock and I had nothing but fretful thoughts to fill my time. So when Mimi popped her head out the Heron’s back door and flagged me over, I went willingly.
“Gailynn, you’re the exact person I’ve been hoping for,” she said. “I wasn’t sure what I was going to do.”
While Mimi worked her way through the conversational preliminaries, the scent of sizzling bacon and fresh perked coffee had my mouth watering.
“Edna Sinclair’s going to be calling and I forgot her geranium cream at the house. It’s in the jar on my worktable and I am so swamped there’s no way I can run home and get it. Mike’s at the hardware store, the kids are sleeping over at, well, to make a long story short, would you be a dear and scoot up to the house and fetch it for me?”
“It’s all ready to go?”
She nodded. “Just grab one of those gift bags out of the cupboard, you know where I keep them, pop the cream into the bag with one of my cards and bring it down here to the restaurant. I’ll give it to Edna at the funeral.”
Murder in Hum Harbour Page 14
