Embers

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  "I seem to have made myself pretty obvious back there," Wyler said when he and Meg were alone in the upstairs hall.

  "Everybody does; we're used to it."

  "She's very beautiful."

  "Yes."

  "How old is she, anyway?" the detective ventured as they stopped to pull a blanket from a linen closet in the hall.

  "Allie? Oh, she looks twenty-five, but don't let that fool you; she's really seventy-two."

  He laughed — a musing, pleasant laugh.

  It was nothing new, this relentless cross-examination about her younger sister. Even so, Meg was a little disappointed in Tom Wyler. She'd have thought a Chicago homicide detective would be less ... impressionable, somehow.

  "And she's still not married?"

  "Nope. No one wants her."

  "What?"

  "That's another joke." Meg looked him in the eye and smiled. Really, men could be so pathetic. "Actually, Allie does have fewer boyfriends than you'd think; a lot of them are intimidated by her looks. Well, here's your blanket, and here's your room — holler if there's anything your heart desires."

  Again, the suggestion was innocent enough; but it brought the telltale flush back to his neck.

  My, oh, my, he really did take a hit, Meg thought, oddly dismayed.

  "Look, ah ... Meg ... I want you to know I'm grateful for the room. I know it's an intrusion."

  "Not at all," she lied. "What's another body, more or less?"

  His mouth curved upward in a dark smile. "Funny — I hear that line all the time in my work."

  Suddenly Meg remembered what he did for a living and wanted him out of the house. It was instinctive with her, like turning off the television if the twins were watching and the news was violent.

  "Good night, then," she said abruptly.

  Meg spent the rest of the evening answering inquiries and working up the numbers for the Inn Between's quarterly tax return. She kept one ear cocked to the hall, listening for strange footsteps, but the only sounds were the clicks and whirs of the calculator on her battered oak desk. The family was on its best behavior; the halls were unnaturally quiet. It was a school night, so the chances were good that Timmy was doing homework, and excellent that Terry was playing Nintendo. Comfort had retired to her room with her needlework; through the plaster walls Meg could hear the soft strains of a Barry Manilow tape.

  There was no sign of Lloyd, which probably meant that the furnace was resisting his amateur's efforts to make it hum. Meg would've liked to go down and see what was what, but she didn't want to give Allie, trapped in a tête-a-tête with their father, the chance to escape. Allie was best off where she was.

  Bleary-eyed by eleven, Meg changed into cotton pajamas and was brushing her teeth with cold water in the bathroom down the hall when she heard Allie say softly, "No, no, go back to sleep."

  Meg popped into the hall. "Go back to sleep who?" she asked her sister.

  Allie, smiling, shook her head and held an index finger to her lips, then continued on to Meg's bedroom. By the time Meg caught up to her, Allie was peeling away her blue jeans and tossing them on a wicker chair alongside the iron bed that Meg had brought back with her after her husband's death.

  "Tom was out like a light," Allie explained, pulling a man's white T-shirt over her head to sleep in. She blew a kiss to the cover of Newsweek that she'd tacked on the wall facing the bed. "Poor thing."

  "For Pete's sake, what were you doing in there anyway?" Meg could not keep the annoyance out of her voice.

  "Meg," her sister said, picking up on it at once. "I was just checking on him. He is hurt."

  "Hurt, schmurt. You can't go barging into a stranger's room. He's a cop. He might've had a gun."

  "He does have a gun. Hanging in a holster on the bedpost."

  "Oh, great."

  "What's the big deal? It's not as though we haven't all seen guns."

  Meg was fuming. "It's one thing to have a hunting gun stored under lock and key, and another to have a pistol hanging fifteen feet away from where a potential juvenile delinquent is sleeping. Have you ever heard the term 'attractive nuisance'?"

  Allie, stretching her locked arms in front of her, let out an enormous yawn. "You're making way too much of this, Meg," she said, pulling back the quilt and getting tiredly into bed. "God, I'm exhausted. This dollhouse thing has really set Dad off. We just went all through The Formative Years: 1942 — 1947. You should've been there, not me; you care so much more about ancient history. Who gets the wall?"

  "You do," Meg said, crawling in beside her sister. "At least that way I can keep an eye on you."

  "What if I have to get up to pee?"

  "Pee in your pants."

  "Oh, like the old days, when I was three and you were fifteen. Is this the same mattress?"

  "Very funny. I thought you were tired."

  Allie threw an arm around her sister and squeezed her affectionately. "I am, I am. But I'm just so ... up."

  Meg, lying on her back, stared at the cracked ceiling and sighed. Allie was always "up" when she was falling for someone.

  "Night, Allie-cat," Meg said, turning off the little clay lamp on the nightstand.

  They lay alongside each other in the dark, each with her own thoughts, for a moment or two.

  "Meg?"

  "Hmm?"

  "This one's different."

  ****

  When Tom Wyler opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was Allegra Atwells, enchanting in a white sundress with a low square neckline, standing in a pool of sunshine in front of his bed. The sides of her black hair were pulled back in combs, leaving her flushed face in plain view for him to adore. In her left hand she held a big straw hat with a yellow band.

  "Up and at 'em, sleepyhead!" she said in a voice as lilting as her getup. "I have a full day planned for us!"

  He lifted himself as far as his elbows. His first thought was that he'd died of his wounds and gone to heaven. His second thought was that divorced fathers didn't get to go to heaven. "What time is it?" he said groggily, still disoriented. A big striped cat with tufted ears and a white throat appeared from nowhere, walked over him, and jumped to the floor.

  Allie held out a slender wrist for his examination. "Nine. How you slept through the twins' morning toilette, I'll never know. But now they're off to school; there's plenty of hot water; and the bathroom's available. It doesn't get any better than this — almost."

  It was that "almost," delivered with that half smile, that set his heart to turning over at a brisker pace. Oh, yes; he was awake now.

  But confused. "Did I sleepwalk into your room and beg you for a date last night?"

  She laughed — which made him suddenly want to take her in his arms — and said, "Your manners are much better than that. No, I planned your day all on my own, as I tossed and turned in bed. It starts with a quick tour of Cadillac Mountain, so c'mon," she said, giving his blanket a bold yank. "Up." She turned and, with a graceful sweep of her hat, floated out of his room.

  Since he wasn't wearing pajama tops (the room had an enormous, unstoppable radiator), he wondered how she could be so sure he was wearing bottoms. He was, but a fat lot of good they did: He looked down and groaned.

  Ready. Willing. Able.

  Damn it. This was not what he had in mind. A woman — any woman, but especially this woman — was an unnecessary complication. Who could rest around a beautiful woman? A man had a — well, the only real word for it was an obligation — to pay strict, constant attention to a beautiful woman. Just in case. Because you never knew. You could get lucky. She said herself she'd tossed and turned.

  Damn it. This was not what he had in mind. A box of books and a stack of CDs was what he —

  "Lieutenant Wyler. Do you mind?"

  It was Meg Hazard. She'd pushed the door the rest of the way open and was standing in Allie's pool of sunlight with a clutch of new towels in her arms and an ironic, infuriating smile on her face.

  He yanked the blanket up to cover h
imself and instantly felt like an ass for doing it.

  "We don't leave our guns draped over the furniture around here," she went on to explain. "Would you mind putting that away?"

  "It isn't loaded," he said shortly.

  "I'm glad to hear it. Terry shoots at things all day long on his video screen; no one wants him graduating to the real thing."

  "I understand completely," Wyler said. What he didn't understand was why a closed door meant nothing to these people. "I'll move my things next door as soon as I can," he added to reassure her.

  "No hurry," she said offhandedly. He couldn't tell if she meant it or not. "Allie tells me you two are doing Bar Harbor," she added.

  Allie. White dress. Big hat. Red lips. The vision returned, pushing out the reality of Meg in her workaday khakis, blue shirt, and mercilessly ironic smile.

  "You have a nice day, then."

  "Yeah," he muttered. "You too."

  She left with her towels and he thought, She thinks I'm too old for Allie. Naturally; a woman her age always thought a man his age should keep his hands off someone Allie's age.

  He got up and went to shower. The towels he'd seen in Meg's arms were laid out for him, and a new bar of soap, all for free: She'd refused his offer of payment at dinner the night before. She had no kids, apparently; he wondered why. God knows the nurturing instincts were there.

  She was a funny blend of kindness and drill sergeant. Personally, he found it a little off-putting. It was easier to like an angel, easier to fear a dragon. You knew where you were with either one; you could take predictable action. But the combination types — and Meg Hazard was a combination type — seemed to enjoy keeping you off-balance and making you feel like a fool. It rankled. He felt his cheeks burn just thinking about the pitying looks she'd given him at the dinner table.

  Well, Meg had nothing to fear. He had no intention of getting involved, temporarily or otherwise, with her beautiful child-sister. He was in Maine to put himself back together, physically and psychologically. For that he needed peace and quiet, and lots of rest.

  ****

  "See down there? That's Eagle Lake."

  They were twisting their way up a corkscrew road, part of the Acadia Park Loop, that led to the summit of Cadillac Mountain. For some reason unknown to Wyler, Allie Atwells didn't like to use her seat belt, rearview mirror, or brakes. She drove like a madwoman. Wyler, who had been in a police chase once or twice in his career, clung to the door handle and craned his neck.

  "Where? I missed it."

  "Never mind; there's an overlook coming up."

  The overlook came and the overlook went; a sharp right, a drive-through, and they were back on the Loop Road without Wyler, at least, having overlooked a damn thing. He was much more concerned about pitching over the edge into instant oblivion.

  "Pretty, huh? In the winter my dad and Lloyd ice-fish on it. I tried it once, but — not for me. I like my water without a foot of ice on top. How about you? Winter sports, or summer?"

  "My idea of winter sport is heaving another log on the fire," he said, trying with every ounce of his will power not to shout JESUS CHRIST, SLOW DOWN!

  "Ah, see that? You and I are alike," said Allie, flashing him a thousand-kilowatt grin. "We don't go out of our way to suffer pain and torture."

  Traffic ahead of them on the two-lane road slowed, then stopped; they were near the summit. Allie kept the car from rolling back by balancing the clutch. But the engine died, forcing her — at last — to place one foot on the brake. She turned the key and started the engine again, casually lifting her foot from the brake to the gas while the car rolled back at about a thousand miles an hour into the Taurus behind them.

  The driver of the Taurus leaned furiously on his horn; and that was when Wyler got an inkling, first hand, of Allegra Atwells's casual power over the opposite sex. She turned around and waved apologetically and that was that; the man was putty. He waved back with an utterly moronic grin.

  The same grin, Wyler assumed, that he himself had worn through most of dinner the night before.

  "The Escort's crying for a tune-up," Allie said gaily, "but that's got to wait for my first paycheck."

  "You have a job lined up, then?" he asked as they pulled into the summit parking lot.

  "No, but I'm not really worried. The hospitality industry is one of today's hot fields. And I have a lot of related experience. I even managed a Pizza Hut. Besides, I've put together a really professional résumé, and I'm including a videotape of myself, to show I'm right on top of current technology."

  "Oh, yeah. The videotape should do it," he said with offhand irony.

  But Allie wasn't like Meg; she didn't look for meaning behind the meaning. Allie didn't have time for irony; she took what you said at face value and moved on.

  He liked that in her. A lot.

  She was out of the car before he could get her door. From the parking lot it was a few steps onto the summit, a grassy knoll with rocky outcroppings.

  Allie, charging ahead, suddenly turned to him and said, "Oh! I'm not going too fast, am I?"

  "Not at all," he said. His vanity had made him leave his cane in the car, and now he was in a sweat keeping up with her. "March on."

  A gust of wind tore the straw hat from her head and sent it cartwheeling across the mountaintop.

  Shit, he thought. "I'll get it," he said cheerfully.

  He began a painful hip-hop after the hat over her objections and was saved from out-and-out fainting by a younger, faster tourist who scooped up the hat and brought it back to Allie with a flourish.

  "Damn puppy," Wyler muttered as he trekked painfully back to the two of them.

  The puppy said, "She tells me you have a cane in the car; would you like me to get it for you, sir?"

  "I can get my own cane," he said with a thin smile. "Thank you."

  For God's sake, he thought. I'm forty. I'm not a sir yet.

  The fellow reluctantly rejoined his own group, and Wyler and Allie were left to enjoy what was a pretty spectacular view, even through the haze.

  "Acadia is the second most visited of the national parks, even though it's one of the smallest ones," she said as they strolled over to the view of the east. "Way down there, tucked by the shore — that's Bar Harbor. It started out as a summer colony for artists and literati, then became a rich man's playground during the Gilded Age. That's who donated a lot of the land for the park, you know: the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers. The woman who owned the Hope Diamond lived in Bar Harbor, and God knows who else; people like the ones my grandmother worked for. The idle rich. Meg knows the history better than I do."

  "What's that longish island on the left?"

  "Bar Island," she answered, obviously relieved to know the answer.

  "Only it's not always an island. At low tide a sandbar to it gets exposed; people walk out to the island all the time then. It's the tourist thing to do. Want to go? We'll have to check the tides —"

  "Let's hold a turn on that one," he said with a shrug. "I'm not as keen on the ocean as most of the tourists here."

  "Why'd you come, then?" she asked, puzzled. "Obviously not for the hiking."

  She didn't mean it the way it sounded, but his manhood was feeling a little beat-up. He smiled in grim agreement. "The truth is, I was told to go someplace the opposite of Chicago to convalesce. I chose Bar Harbor."

  "How did you get hurt?" she asked, clearly dying to know.

  "I, ah, got caught in a crossfire," Wyler said. It was the most reckless thing he'd ever done — even more reckless, he thought dryly, than getting into a car driven by Allie Atwells.

  "How awful," Allie said, wide-eyed. "Was it one of those drive-by things?"

  "Not exactly. It was in the hallway of a housing project. Look, you don't mind if we talk about something else, do you? It all seems long ago and far away."

  "You said you chose Bar Harbor, but I don't think choice had anything to do with it," she said, toying with the ribbons of her hat. "I think it
was fate."

  When she looked up at him her cheeks were high with color. She was unbelievably lovely. It was all he could do not to touch her face, the way a blind man affirms the reality of someone precious.

  At that exact moment an image of her older sister, mocking and ironic, flashed in front of him. It put things instantly in perspective. What the hell was he doing, traipsing around a mountaintop with a twenty-five-year-old? He wanted to sit down. His leg hurt. He began a drift back to the car.

  "So," he said to change the subject, "Meg thinks you're coming into the family business?" Such as it was.

  "Not right away. She knows I need to spread my wings and make some real money first. I've told her that later when I'm rich I'll come back to Bar Harbor and buy her the biggest hotel in town. C'mon. You can take me to lunch. If we don't eat now, we won't have room for high tea at the Jordan Pond House. No one comes to Bar Harbor without having high tea there; it's the oldest tradition in town."

  ****

  Wyler had kept his eyes wide open on the road to the summit; on the way down, he kept them closed. They reached the foot of the mountain in thirty-two seconds. Allie delivered him in one piece, which made him feel the same affection for her that, say, a bungee jumper feels for the guy who runs the crane.

  Whatever the reason, he was enjoying the rush. When Allie dragged him into a restaurant with great seats and a view of the harbor, he was delighted. This was more like it.

  The fact was, he had become something of a fart since Lydia walked out on him. During the first whole year after she left with their son for the West Coast, he did nothing but lick his wounds. During the second year he buried himself — even more than before the divorce — in his work. Third year: ditto.

  He'd convinced himself that he was honing his skills to be razor-sharp. What he'd really done was blunt his judgment with overwork until that star-crossed night in the hallway of the housing project, when all of it — his resentment, his hurt, his guilt, his fatigue — got blown apart with four shots of a nine-millimeter. Three for him. One for little Cindy.