“Oh, Teddy.” He looked at her, and she read exhaustion and something else she couldn’t decipher in his expression. He seemed blank and bleary. “I’m just… I have to leave. Unexpectedly. I’m starting to pack up.”
“Let me give you a hand,” she replied, even as her stomach turned greasily. She bit back other casual comments she might otherwise have made about him going back to campus and so on. Instead, she concentrated on helping to box up the unbroken test tubes and stack the petri dishes in slots in their own carton.
“Thanks. How’s the book?” he asked as he wrapped the electrical cord around the centrifuge.
“I sent it off to Harriet and my editor first thing this morning,” she lied. “I did the last bit of polishing last night. So I’m now officially finished! You can rest easy—and your timing for leaving is perfect. I won’t need you to keep me fed and watered anymore.”
He cast her a glance. “I didn’t mind at all, Teddy. Really. It’s been kind of fun, even with everything going on.” He hefted the centrifuge. “So you’ll be leaving too, then? I don’t really want to leave you here alone with all this…stuff going on.” Now he looked downright miserable.
“Oh, that’s no problem. I’m going to stay with Declan and Steph for a few days. Now that the book is done, I can have some fun and relaxation.” Teddy was, after all, a good storyteller. She knew what her audience wanted—but more importantly, what they needed.
Oscar seemed relieved. “Oh, good. I’m glad you won’t be staying here alone.” Teddy held the door as he lugged the awkward piece of equipment outside.
When he’d finished loading the last box, Oscar came back into the cottage. He had his hands thrust in his pockets, and Teddy, who was in the kitchen making tea and fighting back both anger and tears, ignored him. When she had her emotions under control, she looked up and gave him a bright smile. “All set? Got everything packed up?”
“Yes.” He stood there, awkwardness rolling off him—and Teddy didn’t give him an inch.
“Want something for the road?” she forced herself to say brightly. “A cup of coffee? A piece of toast?”
“Teddy.” His voice was low and maybe a little confused. “I…uh…I’m sorry I have to take off like this. So unexpectedly.”
“Oscar,” she replied with a teasing lilt, and decided, I’ll be damned if I’ll make this easy. “Is that your way of asking for a kiss goodbye?”
Before he could respond, she took matters into her own hands and stepped right up to him. Her arms went around his neck and, without pressing against him—she couldn’t quite make herself do that; it was too painful—she lifted up on her toes to kiss him.
It was a tender kiss, soft and sensual, and she felt him melt against her. His breath caught in a little ragged sigh against her mouth, and he kissed her back. Deeply and, she thought, a little desperately.
Good.
The jerk.
She was the one to pull away, and when she looked into his eyes, she saw that the exhaustion had fled. Instead, there was heat burning there.
Then, suddenly, it was gone. He stepped back and gave her a crooked smile. “That was one hell of a goodbye.”
“Make sure to look me up if you’re ever in New York.” Then, just to twist the knife, she added, “You can get in contact with me through my publisher. Safe travels back to Princeton, Dr. London.”
She managed to keep it together until she heard his Jeep crunch over the gravel. Then she threw her mug across the kitchen so it shattered and sat down for a good cry.
She could sweep up later.
Oscar was three hours away from Wicks Hollow when he pulled off the highway and rested his head against the steering wheel.
What am I doing?
He’d been fighting with himself pretty much ever since he got up this morning.
But he’d made a promise to Marcie. He’d come back, and they’d talk…but try as he might to imagine it, all he could think of was Teddy.
What am I going to do?
He sat in the parking lot of a McDonald’s for a good ten minutes before he pulled out his phone and called Dina.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said as soon as she answered.
“Oh, Oscar. This is why I didn’t tell you about Marcie.”
Damn. She knew him too well.
“I left Wicks Hollow this morning. Packed up my stuff into the Jeep, and now I’m driving back to Princeton…but I’m about to turn around and go back.”
“Go back?”
He didn’t immediately answer her implied question. Instead, he began to talk, just dumping it all out. “After you and I talked, Marcie and I texted for a while. She said we need to talk, and I said okay—”
“Of course you said okay, because that’s you, Oscar,” Dina said, her voice a little tense but still filled with affection. “I told Bethany now that you knew about it, you’d be back in Princeton by the weekend. I guess I miscalculated, because you’ll be back sooner, but she still owes me fifty bucks. She said you weren’t going to come back at all.”
He heaved a sigh. “I don’t know. Ever since we broke up, I knew I wanted to try and work things out with Marcie. And then when she got engaged to Trevor, I was— Well, I figured until she said ‘I do,’ there was still a chance we’d get back together. Not that I said or did anything about it—I sure as hell wasn’t going to go after her or anything that radical.
“When she texted me last night to tell me, and said we needed to talk, I was surprised but…all I could think was it was a miracle.” He tipped his head back against the seat. “But ever since I left Wicks Hollow, all I can think about is leaving Teddy.”
“Teddy? Uh…I thought I was the only gay person in our family. Are you shagging a guy?”
He smiled weakly. “Teddy’s a she. She’s…something else. Really something else. And we’ve been, well, sort of living together for the last few weeks.”
“Wait a minute. You’re telling me you’ve been having an affair with this Teddy person—who I’m guessing you just met there on your sabbatical in Wicks Hollow—and you just up and left her to go back to talk to Marcie? What the hell is wrong with you, Oscar? You don’t jump from one woman’s bed and rush off the minute your former fiancée crooks a finger!”
“No, no, Dina, it’s not like that.” He went on to explain the double booking and how they’d come to terms with sharing the space. “We haven’t been actually sleeping together,” he ended. Yet. “The—uh—relationship, I guess, hasn’t progressed that far.”
“Okay.” Dina sounded less angry and more curious now. “So you’re going back—to Teddy? Or is it more accurate that you’re going away from Marcie?”
“It’s Teddy I can’t stop thinking about. Marcie’s just— Well, she’s sort of a vague dream, I guess. I mean, I still love her…”
“Do you?” Dina said. “Or do you just assume you love her—out of habit? Sounds to me like you’ve got a thing for this Teddy woman. Tell me more about her.”
He smiled again. “Well, she likes to talk—a lot. And I find that very strange, because she claims she’s an introvert. She’s a writer, so we spent some time talking about her book. I sort of helped her come up with an idea that spurred her to get past her writer’s block…” He remembered how the slick and soft Teddy had lunged into his arms and planted her lips on his.
And how she’d tasted and smelled, and felt when he pulled her against him.
And how he hadn’t wanted to let her go.
He shifted in his seat, his pants suddenly uncomfortably tight as he remembered waking up with her that morning after the break-in…and thinking how good it felt.
“And…?” Dina prodded. “Hello? Oscar? Did I lose you?”
“No. I’m here.”
“So she talked your ear off. And you didn’t banish her?”
“Well, she’s interesting. And smart. Funny, too—she’s certain we have a ghost haunting the lighthouse, and she always wanted to investigate it, and I would go a
long with it just because, well, why not? And when we were stuck on top of the lighthouse, we talked a little about Marcie—I told her about everything.” He remembered how indignant Teddy had been on his behalf when she thought Marcie had been involved with the principal. And how calm she’d been once they realized they were stuck on top of the lighthouse gallery.
“You told her about Marcie?”
“That was before we—well, before things changed. We’d just met.”
“But things changed. So what did you tell her this morning when you left? You did say goodbye, didn’t you?” Her voice was tight and squeaky.
“Yes, of course I did. She even helped me pack up the car.”
“Did you tell her why you were leaving? Where you were going?”
“No. I just said I had to leave unexpectedly, and that’s what’s bothering me—she was fine with it. She even told me to look her up if I ever came to New York. Through her publisher.”
He had to admit, that rankled.
Dina laughed. “She told you to look her up through her publisher? Wow. That’s cold.” Then she sobered. “Maybe she was just having a summer not-quite-a-fling, Oscar.”
Oh God. What if she was?
His stomach felt like he was trying to digest a rock. “I don’t know. It didn’t seem like it. She gave me a really hot kiss right before.”
“She gave you a hot kiss, then told you to look her up through her publisher?” Dina started to laugh. “Oh, man. She was giving you a big eff-you. You might not have told her about Marcie, or why you were leaving, but I’ll bet she knew. Or suspected. She was pissed.”
“I don’t know how she could have known… Oh. Oh, damn. I was talking to you on the porch of the cottage. If her window was open, she might have heard me.”
Dina was still laughing. “This Teddy sounds like someone I’d get along with just fine.” Then, finally, she got herself under control. “Look, Oscar, the way I see it, you’ve got to figure out whether you’re going back to Teddy or you’re turning away from Marcie. Because if you go back there to Teddy, you better know the answer to that. And then you can find out where you stand with her. Though I can take a guess.” She began to giggle again, and Oscar started to get annoyed.
“I’m definitely going back.” As soon as he said it, the rock evaporated from his insides. He felt liberated. “To Teddy.”
“All right, then.” He could hear Dina’s smile in her voice, then it faded with her next words. “I hate to ask, but what are you going to do about Marcie?”
“I’ll just tell her I’m not coming.” And Oscar realized he was just fine with that. Making that statement, verbalizing that decision, lifted a veil from his eyes and mind…and heart.
He didn’t have any obligation to Marcie, to their previous relationship—or even to his past hopes and dreams.
He was free to do what he wanted without having to hold on to the past. He was free to relinquish old dreams or wishes and find new ones.
“I’ve moved on,” he said, mostly to himself, but Dina heard it.
And she cheered.
Thanks to a lot of road construction and a bad accident on Interstate 96, it was after five o’clock when Oscar got back to Wicks Hollow. Dark clouds gathering in the west greeted him as he pulled into the village.
Since he didn’t have Teddy’s cell phone number or email or any way to contact her (except through her publisher, which he was not going to do), he needed to find out where her cousin lived—for that was where she said she’d be.
He didn’t much like the idea of having to tell her what was on his mind with an audience around, but he’d messed things up badly enough that he supposed it was part of his payback for being an idiot. Because the more he reflected on it, the more he realized that the lack of chattiness from Teddy that morning could very well have been hurt or confusion or both.
After all, if she’d sent off the book to her editor and agent, she should have been on cloud nine, with nonstop talking and celebration, dancing around the kitchen, and probably even planting a good one on his lips—and more.
Most of all, she definitely wouldn’t have waited for him to ask about it—she’d have volunteered the information.
Despite the ugly storm clouds rolling in over Lake Michigan, the streets of Wicks Hollow were filled with tourists trying to get their vacation activities in before the rain came. It took him forever to find a parking place, then he had to decide what his best strategy would be to get in touch with Declan.
It was strange, in this modern day of mobile phones, social media, and GPS, to have to think about tracking someone down a more old-fashioned—and less efficient—way.
He decided the best option would be to go into Orbra’s Tea House and see if one of the Tuesday Ladies (he still didn’t know why they were called that) would tell him how to find Declan’s house.
Fortunately, neither Maxine nor Juanita were at the tea shop when he went in there, and Orbra was so busy with the afternoon rush that she didn’t even hesitate to tell him where Declan lived.
“Little bungalow on Bell Street. Got dark red Shaker shingles and black shutters, with a white picket fence around the whole thing. His workshop is a detached garage in the back—you can’t miss it because Stephanie planted a bunch of sunflowers in the front garden and they’re taller than I am. Now, if you aren’t going to sit down and order something, you’re gonna have to shoo, because I’m backed up here.”
Oscar didn’t need to be told twice.
But when he found Bell Street and located the little house, just as Orbra described it, no one answered his knock. He even went back to the workshop, peering in the window to see whether Declan was working. Though there was a lot of heavy-duty equipment and a generous collection of iron rods and chunks, everything was dark and quiet.
Having no better idea, Oscar got back in his Jeep to wait for someone to show up.
Sometime later, a loud crack of thunder jolted him from what had been an uncomfortable sleep, slumped as he was in the half-reclined driver’s seat. He sat up and looked around blearily, discovering to his surprise that it was after seven o’clock.
Now what? No one was home; the house was still unlit and there weren’t any cars in the drive. The rain had begun to pelt down, and everything was dark—and from the looks of it, was going to get darker still. The clouds looked ugly.
Damn. For all he knew, Teddy and Declan had gone out to celebrate her really finishing her book and wouldn’t be home for hours. They might even have gone to Grand Rapids, which meant they could be gone overnight.
Frowning sourly at the thought that he was missing Teddy at her most relaxed and happy, and that she was celebrating without him, Oscar started his Jeep.
And then he realized…if Teddy hadn’t really finished her book, if she’d been lying to him that morning, that meant she might not be with Declan—and was probably still back at Stony Cape Cottage. Duh.
On top of that, she was alone in a remote place where a lot of creepy and unpleasant things had been happening.
During a terrible thunderstorm.
He fairly floored the Jeep on his way out of town.
He’d been a complete idiot.
In more ways than one.
Thirteen
Teddy got over her mad rather quickly, all things considered, and though she still felt bruised by Oscar’s abrupt departure, she focused on the work she had to do, and that helped.
She brought her laptop and notes into the main living room of the cottage and set up at the desk there to do her final bit of work on the sixth book in the Sargent Blue series. To her relief, she finished everything just after four o’clock that afternoon.
The book was done.
She danced inside herself, wriggled on her chair, and sang, “Hallelujah!” as loud as she wanted without worrying she’d disturb any neighbors.
It was really and truly done, and ready to send off. And, since she’d texted Harriet three days earlier that she’d finished the firs
t draft, her practical agent had sent her an overnight package that arrived shortly after Oscar had left. In it was Teddy’s smartphone and, thank God, a Wi-Fi hub—so she was able to email the document to both Harriet and her editor.
Then, before she got dragged into looking at all of the email she hadn’t checked for two weeks—fan mail, administrative things, updates from friends and family, and, of course, spam—she closed her laptop firmly. And smiled with satisfaction.
That smile ebbed a little as she wished she had someone to share the moment with. Celebrate. Talk. Dance.
Since she didn’t, and she didn’t have a vehicle to go anywhere, Teddy found herself at loose ends. A quick text to Declan garnered a response that he was in Grand Rapids at a concert with Leslie, Stephanie, and a friend of his daughter’s. They’d be gone overnight.
“So I’m stuck here,” Teddy said, frowning at the ominous clouds gathering over Lake Michigan. She couldn’t chance the four-mile walk into town with the weather looking like that. “At least I have a bottle of wine and a frozen pizza to celebrate with. And a Wi-Fi hub that’ll let me stream Suits. Or Harlot.”
Or she could do a re-watch of Friday Night Lights or Poldark.
That idea perked her up—after all, she hadn’t watched anything—or read anything for pleasure—for weeks.
Plus, she thought, there was still a mystery to solve. Maybe she’d try her hand at some more Nancy Drew-ing first. See if there were any other signs of mischief down by the lake or on the grounds.
That got her out of the cottage to stretch her legs. There was nothing like putting her feet in the water of a gently surging lake.
But it wasn’t until she’d walked down to the beach and back again that Teddy noticed something strange.
The huge, climbing rosebush growing up a piece of lattice on the far lakeside of the lighthouse was off-kilter. Actually, the rose wasn’t off-kilter, but the lattice, which at first glance appeared to be affixed to the exterior wall of the lighthouse, wasn’t attached at all. It was merely leaning against the brickwork. What had caught Teddy’s attention was that it was leaning at a more acute angle than previously.
Sinister Sanctuary: A Ghost Story Romance & Mystery (Wicks Hollow Book 4) Page 19
