by Nora Roberts
Lilah gave a sleepy smile. “Still stewing because you knocked him off his motorcycle.”
“I did not –” On an oath, Suzanna gave up. “Never mind, the point is I don't think we're going to get any help from him.” After pulling the band out of her hair, she ran her hands through it. “Though after the business with the dog, he did say he'd think about it”
“What dog?”
“Fred's cousin,” she said over her shoulder as she walked into the bath to turn on the shower.
Lilah came to the doorway just as Suzanna was pulling the curtain closed. “Fred has a cousin?”
Over the drum of the water, Suzanna told her about Sadie, and her ancestors.
“But that's fabulous. It's just one more link in the chain. I'll have to tell Max.”
With her eyes closed, Suzanna stuck her head under the shower. “Tell him he's on his own. Christian's grandson isn't interested.”
He didn't want to be. Holt sat on the back porch, the dog at his feet, and watched the water turn to indigo in twilight.
There was music here, the symphony of insects in the grass, the rustle of wind, the countermelody of water against wood. Across the bay, Bar Island began to fade and merge into dusk. Nearby someone was playing a radio, a lonely alto sax solo that suited Holt's mood.
This was what he wanted. Quiet, solitude, no responsibilities. He'd earned it, hadn't he? he thought as he tipped the beer to his lips. He'd given ten years of his life to other people's problems, their tragedies, their miseries.
He was burned out, bone – dry and tired as hell.
He wasn't even sure he'd been a good cop. Oh, he had citations and medals that claimed he had been. But he also had a twelve – inch scar on his back that reminded him he'd nearly been a dead one.
Now he just wanted jto enjoy his retirement, repair a few motors, scrape some barnacles, maybe do a little boating. He'd always been good with his hands and knew he could make a decent living repairing boats. Running his own business, at his own pace, in his own way. No reports to type, no leads to follow up, no dark alleys to search.
No knife – wielding junkies springing out of the shadows to rip you open and leave you bleeding on the littered concrete.
Holt closed his eyes and took another pull of beer. He'd made up his mind during the long, painful hospital stay. There would be no more commitment in his life, no more trying to save the world from itself. From that point on, he would start looking out for himself. Just himself.
He'd taken the money he'd inherited and had come home, to do as little as possible with the rest of his life. Sun and sea in the summer, roaring fires and howling winds in the winter. It wasn't so damn much to ask.
He'd been settling in, feeling pretty good about himself. Then she'd come along.
Hadn't it been bad enough that he'd looked at her and felt – Lord, the way he'd felt when he'd been twenty years old. Churned up and hungry. He was still hung up on her.
The lovely, and unattainable, Suzanna Calhoun of the Bar Harbor Calhouns. The princess in the tower. She'd lived high up in her castle on the cliffs. And he had lived in a cottage on the edge of the village. His father had been a lobsterman, and Holt had often delivered a catch to the Calhoun's back door – never going beyond the kitchen. But he'd sometimes heard voices or laughter or music. And he had wondered and wanted.
Now she had come to him. But he wasn't a love – struck boy any longer. He was a realist. Suzanna was out of his league, just as she had always been. Even if it had been different, he wasn't interested in a woman who had home and hearth written all over her.
As far as the emeralds went, there was nothing he could do to help her. Nothing he wanted to do.
He'd known about the emeralds, of course. That particular story had made national press. But the idea that his grandfather had been involved, had loved and been loved by a Calhoun woman. That was fascinating.
Even with the coincidence about the dogs, he wasn't sure he believed it. Holt hadn't known his grandmother, but his grandfather had been the hero of his childhood. He'd been the dashing and mysterious figure who had gone off to foreign places, come back with fabulous stories. He'd been the man who had been able to perform magic with a canvas and brush.
He could remember climbing up the stairs to the studio as a child to watch the tall man with the snow – white hair at work. Yet it had seemed more like combat than work. An elegant and passionate duel between his grandfather and the canvas.
They would take long walks, the young boy and the old man, along the shore, across the rocks. Up on the cliffs. With a sigh, Holt sat back. Very often they had walked to the cliffs just below The Towers. Even as a child he'd understood that as his grandfather had looked out to sea, he had gone someplace else.
Once, they had sat on the rocks there and his grandfather had told him a story about the castle on the cliffs, and the princess who'd lived there.
Had he been talking about The Towers, and Bianca?
Restless, Holt rose to go inside. Sadie glanced up, then settled her head on her front paws again as the screen door slammed.
The cottage suited him more than the home he'd grown up in. That had been a neat and soulless place with worn linoleum and dark paneled walls. Holt had sold it after his mother's death three years before. Recently he'd used the profits for some repairs and modernization of the cottage, but preferred keeping the old place much as it had been in his grandfather's day.
It was a boxy house, with plaster walls and wood floors. The original stone fireplace had been pointed up, and Holt looked forward to the first cool night when he could try it out.
The bedroom was tiny, almost an afterthought that jutted out from the main structure. He liked lying in bed at night and listening to rain drumming on the tin roof. The stairs to his grandfather's studio had been reinforced, as well as the railing that skirted along the open balcony. He climbed up now, to look at the wide, airy space, dim with twilight.
Now and then he thought about putting skylights in the angled roof, but he never considered refinishing the floor. The dark old wood was splattered with paint that had dripped from brush or palette. There were streaks of carmine and turquoise, drops of emerald green and canary yellow. His grandfather had preferred the vivid, the passionate, even the violent in his work.
Against one wall, canvases were stacked, Holt's legacy from a man who had only begun to find critical and financial success in his last years. They would, he knew, be worth a hefty sum. Yet as he never considered sanding the paint from the floors, he had never considered selling this part of his inheritance.
Crouching down, he began to look through the paintings. He knew them all, had studied them countless times, wondering how he could have come from a man with such vision and talent. Holt turned over the portrait, knowing that was why he had come up here.
The woman was as beautiful as a dream – the fine – featured oval face, the alabaster skin. Rich red – gold hair was swept up off a graceful neck. Full, soft lips were curved, just a little. But it was the eyes that drew Holt, as they always had. They were green, like a misty sea. It wasn't their color that pulled at him, but the expression in them, the look, the emotion that had been captured by his grandfather's brush and skill.
Such quiet sadness. Such inner grief. It was almost too painful to look at, because to look too long was to feel. He had seen that expression today, in Suzanna's eyes.
Could this be Bianca? he wondered. The resemblance was there, in the shape of the face, the curve of the mouth. The coloring was certainly wrong and the similarities slight. Except the eyes, he thought. When he looked at them, he thought of Suzanna.
Because he was thinking of her too much, he told himself. He rose, but he didn't turn the portrait back to the wall. He stood staring at it for a long time, wondering if his grandfather had loved the woman he'd painted.
It was going to be another hot one, Suzanna thought. Though it was barely seven, the air was already sticky. They needed rain, but t
he moisture hung in the air and stubbornly refused to fall.
Inside her shop, she checked on the refrigerated blooms and left a note for Carolanne to push the carnations by selling them at half price. She checked the soil in the hanging pots of impatiens and geraniums, then moved on to the display of gloxinia and begonias.
Satisfied, she took her sprayer out to drench the flats of annuals and perennials. The rosebushes and peonies were moving well, she noted. As were the yews and junipers.
By seven – thirty, she was checking on the greenhouse plants, grateful that her inventory was dwindling. What didn't sell, she would winter over. She would also take cuttings for next year's plants. But winter, and that quiet work, was months away.
By eight her pickup was loaded, and she was on her way to Seal Harbor. She would put in a full day's work there on the grounds of a newly constructed home. The buyers were from Boston, and wanted their summer home to have an established yard, complete with shrubs, trees and flower beds.
It would be hot, sweaty work, Suzanne mused. But it would also be quiet.
The Andersons were in Boston this week, so she would have the yard to herself. She liked nothing better than working with the soil and living things, tending something she had planted and watching it grow and thrive.
Like her children, she thought with a smile. Her babies. Every time she put them to bed at night or watched them run in the sunlight, she knew that nothing that had happened to her before, nothing that would happen to her in the future would dim that glow of knowing they were hers.
The failed marriage had left her shaken and uncertain, and there were times she still had terrible doubts about herself as a woman. But not as a mother. Her children had the very best she could give them. The bond nourished her, as well as them.
Over the past two years, she'd begun to believe that she could be a success in business. Her flair for gardening had been her only useful skill and had been a kind of salvation during the last months of her dying marriage. In desperation she had sold her jewelry, taken out a loan and had plunged into Island Gardens.
It had made her feel good to use her maiden name. She hadn't wanted any frivolous or clever name for the business, but something straightforward. The first year had been rough – particularly when she'd been pouring every cent she could spare into legal fees to fight a custody suit.
The thought of that, the memory of it, still made her blood run cold. She couldn't have lost them.
Bax hadn't wanted the children, but he'd wanted to make things difficult for her. When it had been over, she'd lost fifteen pounds, countless hours of sleep and had been up to her neck in debt. But she had her children. The ugly battle had been won, and the price meant nothing.
Gradually she was pulling out. She'd gained back a few of the pounds, had caught up a bit on her sleep and was slowly, meticulously hacking away at the debt. In the two years since she'd opened the business, she'd earned a reputation as dependable, reasonable and imaginative. Two of the resorts had tried her out, and it looked as though they'd be negotiating long – term contracts.
That would mean buying another truck, hiring on full – time labor. And maybe, just maybe, that trip to Disney World.
She pulled up in the driveway of the pretty Cape Cod house. Now, she reminded herself, it meant getting to work.
The grounds took up about a half acre and were gently sloped. She had had three in – depth meetings with the owners to determine the plan. Mrs. Anderson wanted plenty of spring flowering trees and shrubs, and the longterm privacy factor of evergreens. She wanted to enjoy a perennial bed that was carefree and full of summer color. Mr. Anderson didn't want to spend his summers maintaining the yard, particularly the side portion, which fell in a more dramatic grade. There, Suzanna would use ground covers and rockeries to prevent erosion.
By noon, she had measured off each area with stakes and strings. The hardy azaleas were planted. Two long – blooming fairy roses flanked the flagstone walk and were already sweetening the air. Because Mrs. Anderson had expressed a fondness for lilacs, Suzanna placed a trio of compact shrubs near the master bedroom window, where the next spring's breezes would carry the scent indoors.
The yard was coming alive for her. It helped her ignore the aching muscles in her arms as she drenched the new plants with water. Birds were chirping, and somewhere in the near distance, a lawn mower was putting away.
One day, she would drive by and see that the fast – growing hedge roses she had planted along the fence had spread and bloomed until they covered the chain link. She would see the azaleas bloom in the spring and the maple leaves go red in the fall, and know that she'd been part of that.
It was important, more important than she could admit to anyone, that she leave a mark. She needed that to remind herself that she wasn't the weak and useless woman who had been so callously tossed aside.
Dripping with sweat, she picked up her water bottle and shovel and headed around to the front of the house again. She'd put in the first of the flowering almonds and was digging the hole for the second when a car pulled into the driveway behind her truck. Resting on her shovel, Suzanna watched Holt climb out.
She let out a little huff of breath, annoyed that her solitude had been invaded, and went back to digging.
“Out for a drive?” she asked when his shadow fell over her.
“No, the girl at the shop told me where to find you. What the hell are you doing?”
“Playing canasta.” She shoveled some more dirt. “What do you want?”
“Put that shovel down before you hurt yourself. You've got no business digging ditches.”
“Digging ditches is my business – more or less. Now, what do you want?”
He watched her dig for another ten seconds before he snatched the shovel away from her. “Give me that damn thing and sit down.”
Patience had always been her strong point, but she was hard – pressed to find it now. Working at it, she adjusted the brim of the fielder's cap she wore. “I'm on a schedule, and I have six more trees, two rosebushes and twenty square feet of ground cover to plant. If you've got something to say, fine. Talk while I work.”
He jerked the shovel out of her reach. “How deep do you want it?” She only lifted a brow. “How deep do you want the hole?”
She skimmed her gaze down, then up again. “I'd say a little more than six feet would be enough to bury you in.”
He grinned, surprising her. “And you used to be so sweet.” Plunging the shovel in, he began to dig. “Just tell me when to stop.”
Normally she repaid kindness with kindness. But she was going to make an exception. “You can stop right now, I don't need any help. And I don't want the company.”
“I didn't know you had a stubborn streak.” He glanced up as he tossed dirt aside. “I guess I had a hard time getting past that pretty face.” That pretty face, he noted, was flushed and damp and had shadows of fatigue under the eyes. It annoyed the hell out of him. “I thought you sold flowers.”
“I do. I also plant them.”
“Even I know that thing there is a tree.”
“I plant those, too.” Giving up, she took out a bandanna and wiped at her neck. “The hole needs to be wider, not deeper.”
He shifted to accommodate her. Maybe he needed to do a little reevaluating. “How come you don't have anybody doing the heavy work for you?”
“Because I can do it myself.”
Yes, there was stubbornness in the tone, and just a touch of nastiness. He liked her better for it. “Looks like a two – man job to me.”
“It is a two – man job – the other man quit yesterday to be a rock star. His band got a gig down in Brighton Beach.”
“Big time.”
“Hmm. That's fine,” she said, and turned to heft the three – foot tree by its balled roots. As Holt frowned at her, she lifted it, then set it carefully in the hole.
“Now I guess I fill it back in.”
“You've got the shovel,” she poin
ted out. As he worked, she dragged a bag of peat moss closer and began to mix it with the soil.
Her nails were short and rounded, he noted as she dug her already grimed fingers into the soil. There was no wedding ring on her finger. In fact, she wore no jewelry at all, though she had hands that were meant to wear beautiful things.
She worked patiently, her head down, her cap shielding her eyes. He could see the nape of her neck and wondered what it would be like to press his lips there. Heir skin would be hot now, and damp. Then she rose, switching on the garden hose to drench the dirt.
“You do this every day?”
“I try to take a day or two in the shop. I can bring the kids in with me.” With her feet, she tamped down the damp earth. When the tree was secure, she spread a thick lawyer of mulch, her moves competent and practiced. “Next spring, this will be covered with blooms.” She wiped the back of her wrist over her brow. The little tank top she wore had a line of sweat down the front and back that only emphasized her fragile build. “I really am on a schedule, Holt. I've got some aspens and white pine to plant out in back, so if you need to talk to me, you're going to have to come along.”
He glanced around the yard. “Did you do all this today?” “Yes. What do you think?”
“I think you're courting sunstroke.”
A compliment, she supposed, would have been too much to ask. “I appreciate the medical evaluation.” She put a hand on the shovel, but he held on. “I need this.”
“I'll carry it.”
“Fine.” She loaded the bags of peat and mulch into a wheelbarrow. He swore at her, tossed the shovel on top then nudged her away to push the wheelbarrow himself.
“Where out back?”
“By the stakes near the rear fence.”
She frowned after him when he started off, then followed him. He began digging without consulting her so she emptied the wheelbarrow and headed back to her truck. When he glanced up, she was pushing out two more trees. They planted the first one together, in silence.
