“Meaning?”
The old man grinned. “I’ll take you to the wreckage.”
Wyatt went still. He didn’t want to jump to any premature conclusions. The old hermit could be lying, exaggerating, mistaken. But before Wyatt could ask him any questions, Penelope shouted, “Bubba!” from above them, bolted from behind a hemlock and charged down the hill, undeterred by snow that was almost knee-deep in places and brush whipping against her legs and torso.
She stopped at the brook’s edge, and for a second Wyatt thought she might walk right through the water to get to Bubba Johns.
“Bubba,” she said, “look at the mess we’ve got when it’s a dump I found in the woods. Can you imagine what’ll happen if I change my story again? You’ll have reporters crawling through the woods. They’ll film your house, they’ll scare your dogs. You’ll have investigators and historians and more Sinclairs and—and—and God knows what kinds of cretins. You should see this private detective, Jack Dunning, already skulking around here.”
Bubba had no visible reaction to this tirade. “He searched my house this morning.”
“There, you see what I mean?”
“Perhaps truth is our best recourse.”
“Bubba, trust me. Our best recourse is to say I didn’t see anything on Sunday.”
“But you did,” the old man said.
She groaned.
Wyatt had the feeling Bubba didn’t have much use for people. But he did like Penelope. He turned to Wyatt. “It’s too far to go today, and I’m tired. Be here in the morning.” He added, “Early.”
Penelope threw up her hands in frustration. “Give this thing a few more days to die down.”
But two people, one of them Penelope Chestnut, were apparently more than Bubba Johns could handle at one time. He motioned to his dogs, and they jumped up and trotted at his side as he turned his back on Wyatt and Penelope and walked up the hill.
“Let him go,” Wyatt said.
Naturally Penelope turned on him. “I knew you’d sneak out here.”
“Starting to think like a Sinclair, are you?”
“You don’t trust me.”
“Apparently with good reason. You found Colt and Frannie’s plane.”
She had the good grace to squirm. “I was trying to do the right thing.”
“How is it right to lie to Colt’s family? His body must be in the wreckage.”
Her eyes met his. “I’m sorry. I didn’t fully consider your family’s feelings. I figured if Frannie and your uncle had been dead all these years—well, they could rest in peace. The plane’s in a beautiful location, quiet, isolated. As graves go—but that’s not my call. I realize that now. I didn’t think about closure for your family…what you must have gone through all these years.”
“Because we’re Sinclairs?”
She didn’t duck the question. “Maybe.”
“People around here demonize us, blame us for Frannie’s death. If Colt hadn’t swept her off her feet, she’d still be alive.”
“Frankly, I think people see it that Frannie got killed. They assume Colt would have died young, anyway. He just took Frannie with him. I’m not saying that’s what I think—I don’t know what went on between Colt and Frannie. I just thought it’d be best if I found a dump on Sunday instead of a plane wreck.”
“The threats didn’t play a role in changing your mind?”
She shook her head. “They didn’t start until afterward.”
They walked up the icy path to Bubba Johns’s shack. He had a neat woodpile under a tarp, an ax on his chopping block, a homemade wheelbarrow. Everything was rustic and functional. Wyatt noticed plants in his windows—chives and parsley. The hermit had marked out a vegetable garden in a small clearing.
“Bubba’s big on bartering,” Penelope said. “He’s doing sap now—he’ll collect fiddleheads later in the spring.”
“He’s an enterprising fellow for someone who lives at a subsistence level. Is there any evidence of mental illness?”
“Beyond living alone in the middle of the woods? He keeps to himself, and he’s never bothered anyone. He’s not violent, he doesn’t peek in people’s windows, he doesn’t run naked down Main Street. I guess we still believe in harmless eccentrics.”
“Do you know what brought him out here?”
She shook her head. “I think he’s shy, introverted—a gentle soul in a fast-paced, violent world. He’s awkward around people, but I don’t think of him as a misanthrope. I guess he’s more like a monk.”
“Your own Saint Francis of Assisi?”
“Well, I don’t know about his religious convictions. I just mean his sensibilities. He’s careful out here. He gets his water from an above-ground spring nearby, and he doesn’t dump his garbage in the woods or use chemicals on his garden. He’s old for a hippie, but he’s more of your crunchy-granola type than your Unabomber type.”
Wyatt gave her a penetrating look. “How long do you think he’s known about the plane wreckage?”
“I can’t even hazard a guess. He wouldn’t consider it any of his business, and it’s not as if he knew Colt and Frannie. He might not have realized the plane’s been missing all these years.”
“Unlike yours, his curiosity is limited.”
She smiled, taking no offense. “I guess you could say that.”
“The plane—when you saw it on Sunday—”
“I’m not positive it was their plane, Wyatt, or even that it was a plane, although there doesn’t seem to be much doubt. It’s on a very steep, rocky hill, and with the snow and ice and the late hour, I didn’t risk a close look.”
“Did you go back?”
“No. I made that up. I didn’t want more tracks for someone else to follow. As it was, even with the snow we’ve had I’ve been concerned that someone knowledgeable and determined could have found my tracks and followed them—not that it’s a direct route. I was lost.”
“That part was true?”
“Everything was true except the stuff about the dump, which no one believes, anyway. I’ve always been such a lousy liar. You? Are you much of a liar?”
“I’ve never had much call to lie.”
“A do-as-you-please Sinclair,” she said airily, without criticism, and cut a smile at him.
When they arrived at her cabin, only Andy McNally remained. He informed Penelope that they’d finished their investigation and she was free to go inside. “I don’t think I want Jane and Rebecca up here until we know more about what’s going on.”
“I understand. Sap’s been slow the last couple of days, anyway.”
“You spending the night at the inn?”
She shrugged, and Wyatt could see how much she hated being run out of her own home. “Probably.”
McNally grinned, cuffing her on the shoulder reassuringly. “We’ll get to the bottom of this mess. I’ll have a beer with you tonight.”
“Thanks, Andy.”
“Don’t thank me. I still want to know everything you haven’t told me.”
He climbed into his car, but before he shut the door, he said, “You’re not in this thing alone, even if you’re trying to be. You take the world out to that plane wreck, this nutcase might stop pestering you.” She opened her mouth to protest, but McNally cut her off. “I’ll make sure a car drives up here a few times tonight.”
After the police chief left, Wyatt noticed Penelope had developed a little shiver. She saw him watching her and said, “Low blood sugar. It’s that stupid Indian pudding I ate for lunch. Gave me a sugar high, and now I’m paying for it. I need a piece of cheese.”
“You’re not just cold and a little unnerved?”
“Not me,” she said and headed inside.
Wyatt followed her. The place wasn’t torn apart—it had been searched, not vandalized—but things were not neat. Drawers opened, stuff hanging out, some of it scattered on the floor, couch and chair cushions askew. He checked her study and bedroom, saw that they, too, had been thoroughly explored.
Penelope, however, was bent on food. She tore open her refrigerator, dug out a hunk of Vermont cheddar, and smacked it on the counter. With a paring knife from a drawer, she hacked off a piece of cheese. “Want some?” she asked. He shook his head, and she ate. “I love cheese, even if it’s not low-fat. Okay. So, what now? I need to water my plants and pack. One night at the inn should sufficiently calm everyone’s nerves.”
Wyatt helped her water her plants in the study. He noticed her hands, her long fingers, the delicate way she handled the tender green shoots, no sign of the restlessness or bridled energy he’d witnessed when he saw her after her troubled landing. It wasn’t anything that had happened in the past few days, he felt certain—it was simply the task at hand, the incongruities of her life.
“I’ll clean this mess up later,” she said, and went into her bedroom to pack. She emerged a few minutes later with a backpack slung over one shoulder. “Are you going to tell Jack Dunning about the plane?”
“I’m still debating. I might want to see it first before I tell him or my father.”
“Your father trust Dunning?”
“As much as he can trust anyone, I suppose. You see, I’m used to people who aren’t long on trust. I always look for the undercurrent, the unspoken.”
“So if our pal Jack seems to have taken a shine to Harriet, it could be a ploy to get something out of her?”
“That would be my suspicion.”
Penelope thought a moment. “Well, Harriet’s heart’s been broken by bigger bastards than Jack Dunning. Not that he’s any prize, but it’s not as if she really knows him. She’s just smitten.”
“She’s known Jack as long as we’ve known each other.”
Her green eyes fastened on him. “Who says I’m not just smitten?”
Penelope drove her truck, when her father had returned to the cabin, Wyatt his car, to the inn, where he went upstairs to make a few calls and she joined Harriet and her mother in the kitchen. She thought she heard sighs of relief when they saw her backpack and realized she was staying. She made her own pot of tea and warmed up two cinnamon nut scones while her mother tore spinach into a pitted aluminum colander, saying nothing. Harriet fluttered around with cloths and sponges. Penelope didn’t know if it would be a good thing or a bad thing to tell them she’d reformulated her plane wreck story. Probably best to keep her mouth shut.
“Harriet’s handling dinner tonight,” her mother said, still tearing furiously. “I’m just doing some of the prep work. We only have four guests, including Wyatt and Jack.”
“That doesn’t include me, does it? I’m staying, but I wouldn’t want to be considered a guest. But of course I’ll pay.”
“You don’t have to pay,” Harriet said.
“I paid when I stayed those two nights after the flea infestation.” She’d taken in a stray dog for a few days, fed him, cleaned him up and found him a home. He’d left her fleas. It reminded her of one of her mother’s favorite sayings—Lie down with dogs, come up with fleas. Penelope wondered if that was what she was thinking now. “Which room are you putting me in?”
Her cousin floated by with her sponge. “The Tower Room.”
Her and Ann Boleyn. Penelope wasn’t fooled. The Tower Room was in an odd nook on the third floor, just down the hall from Harriet’s suite. Harriet was a light sleeper. One creak of the floorboard and she’d be poking her head out the door.
“Penelope,” her mother said, “I’m going out to the sugar house in a little while. Would you care to join me?”
It was the last thing she wanted to do. “Do you need my help?”
“I could use someone to keep the fire going. Rebecca and Jane are stopping by, too.”
Good. At least she and her mother wouldn’t be alone. If things were hopping at the sugar house, it could be a pleasant diversion. Her, her mother, friends, all that heat and boiling sap. If things were slow, it could be deadly. Her, her mother, all that gaping silence. She said she’d go, and, tea and scones consumed, apple in one hand, she grabbed the key to the Tower Room at the front desk and headed up the stairs.
Her room was the most unusual in the inn, with its dormer and slanted ceilings and odd little corners. It was done in shades of dark blue, with lots of wood and a touch of green. A window seat piled with pillows looked out on the lake. Penelope felt herself drawn to it, ready to just flop out and read a book, listen to music, forget the questions and fears and longings that had plagued her for days. Instead she made herself unpack, change into a fresh turtleneck and sweater, and scoot down to meet her mother.
Except she got distracted at Wyatt’s room.
She could hear him talking through the door but was unable to make out words. Leaning closer, she clearly distinguished, “All right, I’ll call you tomorrow,” and suddenly the door opened, throwing her off balance. She jerked back, but before she could make good her escape, Wyatt grabbed her wrist and dragged her inside.
“Listening at keyholes, are we?”
“I was just about to knock when the door opened—”
“You are the worst liar.”
He kicked the door shut with one foot, and his arm went around her, pulling her close. In that half second before his mouth found hers, she could have protested, bolted or otherwise said no, but she didn’t. The kiss was long, tender, the urgency of this morning banked back, and she felt herself melting into him, wanting nothing more than what that moment offered.
But her mother was waiting downstairs, and for once Penelope exercised prudence. “Who were you talking to on the phone?” she asked, straightening her shirt and sweater.
“My office in New York.”
“Is being here costing you money?”
“Millions,” he said, “billions.”
“Here I’ve slept with you and I barely know what you do. I don’t usually do that, you know. Sleep with a man and then get to know him.” She went still, all the way down deep, and studied him. The dark hair, the dark eyes, the slices and hard angles of his face. “Of course, I thought I already knew you.”
He smiled, a twitch of amusement at one corner of his mouth. “Is that an admission that you’ve fantasized about having sex with a Sinclair?”
“It’s nothing of the kind, and you’re a horrible man for suggesting such a thing,” she said airily, stifling a laugh. “Lucky for you my mother’s waiting downstairs. We’re off to the sugar house. What will you do?”
“Have dinner and fantasize about having sex with a blond Yankee pilot.”
“I’m serious.”
He laughed. “So am I.”
The man was impossible. Irresistible. And she had no expectations about where their attraction would land them down the road. “Have you decided what to tell Jack?”
“I haven’t decided anything except I’m trying Harriet’s Indian pudding for dessert.”
Fourteen
“T he Sinclairs didn’t buy their land in Cold Spring until the nineteen thirties,” Harriet said as she and Jack Dunning walked up Main Street after dinner. It was dark, not too cold. “My mother’s family came here in the seventeen hundreds. My father’s family came in the mid-eighteen hundreds. Robby moved here from Massachusetts when she was ten.”
Jack smiled. “I can’t imagine sitting in the same town for two or three hundred years. I knew my grandparents on my father’s side. That’s it.”
“Are you interested in finding out about your ancestors?”
“Don’t know what difference it’d make. I consider Texas my home now, but I don’t expect I think about home the same way you do, Harriet. When I’ve put aside enough money, I’m going back to Texas, buying a piece of land, building a house. I’d like to own a ranch.”
“Why did you move back to New York?”
He walked close to her, close enough that she could smell his sharp cologne and occasionally brushed against his arm. He wore his shearling-lined jacket, his cowboy hat and boots. He couldn’t have looked more out of place on Main Street in a small New England
village if he’d been naked. He said, “I pissed off a lot of people in Dallas. Figured I could make some money in New York, let things cool off. Brandon Sinclair’s not my only client, but he’s got the kind of dough that if he says hop, I hop.”
“I’ve never met him. Wyatt’s the first Sinclair to come to Cold Spring since Frannie and Colt disappeared.”
“Wyatt’s a throwback,” Jack said. “Except for not making a marriage stick, Brandon’s a gentleman. He doesn’t seem to need to slay dragons and climb tall mountains. I think losing his brother sucked most of that Sinclair bullshit right out of him.”
Harriet hunched her shoulders against a sudden stiff breeze. She hadn’t worn a hat or gloves. She’d have red ears by the time they returned to the inn. “The Sinclairs have always been considered outsiders here. Owning land didn’t make a difference. Willard Sinclair—Brandon’s father—used to hunt and fish with my uncle, Penelope’s grandfather, but it’s not as if they were friends. Willard was the rich outsider, my uncle was the local.”
“Then Frannie Beaudine crossed the big divide,” Jack said.
“Yes, she did. But so did Colt. They both broke the rules.”
“The forbidden relationship.”
Harriet gave him a sharp look but saw that he wasn’t mocking her or Frannie and Colt. They kept walking, crossing a side street, moving away from the village shops. “I suppose Frannie might not have considered herself a local anymore, but she was hardly in the Sinclairs’ league. She was an adventurer herself, and a scholar—she just wasn’t rich.”
“Who do you think was in charge? Colt or Frannie? He was the rich boy, but she was older.”
“I’m not sure either was in charge. It could have been a partnership.”
“That’s nowadays. In the fifties—”
“My parents have always had a partnership, and they’re almost eighty.”
“Then they’re lucky.”
He walked a few paces, his boots clicking on the pavement. The street sweepers would be out before too long, clearing the roads of the sand that had accumulated over the winter. Harriet felt a sudden, deep yearning for spring. She would dig in her garden and serve tea and scones on the porch.
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