“So if we don’t want a Parker visit in the next day or so, we need to take protective measures.” She looked at the speechless group. “Unless we want to make a run for it?” she asked, only half facetiously.
Jess sank onto the nearest beach chair. “I am so screwed and I’ve gotten you guys into this mess because I’m such a coward. I should just go back and face them.”
Allie reached over and touched her arm. “You’re not going back. Not after finally getting away. You deserve to love someone who loves you for yourself.”
“You’re right. I do and I won’t go back, but maybe I should leave. My parents are ruthless. They can hurt you. My father eats small businesses for breakfast and corporations for dinner. He has politicians and bankers under his thumb. And what he doesn’t control, the Beckmans do. My father and James’s father brokered this marriage, just like they do with everything else. For profit and power. And their wives make sure their social standing is the highest. They’re exhausting.”
Jess glanced at Lillo. “You remember how they were?”
Lillo nodded.
“They’re worse now.”
Diana jumped in. “Yeah, yeah, all the things that matter. I’ll take them on. Are you with me or agin me?”
“I’m in,” Allie said.
Lillo shrugged. “Mi casa es su casa.”
“Good, now where can I find a prepaid phone or a landline so I can set up a new account.”
“The gift shop.”
“Great. I’ll be right back.”
“I think Mac was going to take her van over to get new tires,” Jess said.
Lillo got up. “I’ll come with you. I’ve got a key.” She shrugged. “I sometimes watch the store when Mac has a tour of the lighthouse.”
Diana did a double take. “You work at the gift shop, too?”
“Just help out now and again.”
They stopped in the house long enough to pull shorts over their suits and for Lillo to get the key, then headed across the parking lot.
“Have you always been a gardener–slash–gift shop clerk–slash–clinic helper?”
“I do other stuff, too.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. Hey, one of those jobs wouldn’t be helping out at a local stable, would it?”
Lillo looked sideways at her.
“What? Not into shoveling shit?”
Lillo shrugged. “Are you into it?”
“I’ve shoveled my share. Haven’t in a while, but I still own two horses. I wouldn’t mind riding a bit while I’m here. I saw a guy riding on the edge of the woods when I was down by the jetty. And I might add, a fine figure on a horse he was.”
“Aha … That was probably Ian, the local vet.”
“Ian, the man who didn’t come to dinner?”
“The very one. Where he lives used to be a stable, among other things. Now it’s primarily a veterinary office. He keeps a few horses.”
“Does he rent them out?”
“Um … I’m not sure. I believe he does on occasion. I know he gives lessons.”
“Great, if he won’t rent me a horse, I’ll take a lesson. I don’t suppose you have a spare pair of jeans lying around?”
“Not any that would be long enough for you. But the consignment shop probably does … if you don’t mind wearing secondhand clothes.”
“If they’re clean. But first things first. Time to make the Parkers’ lives more difficult. Then I’m going to see a man about a horse.”
Lillo let them into the gift shop, where Diana wrote an IOU for the prepaid. She’d wanted to pay but didn’t have the correct change and Lillo didn’t want to bother with opening the cash register.
When they were back in the parking lot, Lillo pointed the way to the vet’s house and office.
“You’re sure you don’t want to come put in a good word for me?”
“No. I think he’ll be more amenable if you went alone.” Lillo grasped Diana’s arm. “He’s perfectly safe, just a little quiet.”
Diana thought that was a pretty odd thing to say, but the man was a vet, so people must go to his office all the time, and if he gave riding lessons … What wasn’t Lillo telling her?
“Go down the road there until you see the sign for the vet. The house is about four hundred feet up the drive. I have a bike in the shed but the terrain is a little rough once you get off the paved road.”
“Thanks, but I haven’t honed my bike-riding skills since middle school. I’ll walk.” Diana started out across the pavement. At first, the walk was pleasant. The road was narrow but she didn’t meet any traffic. No exhaust fumes and the only sounds were the waves off to her left and the birdcalls in the woods. The best of both natural worlds. A double nature whammy for her week off, then back to the city, where she belonged. But for now … she breathed in the fresh air.
She almost passed the sign that said vet. Black hand-painted letters on a weathered wooden board. No “Lighthouse Beach Animal Clinic” or “Paws for Your Pets,” or any other marketable branding, just vet. And you’d have to be looking for the place to find it; someone should cut down the bush that was half-hiding it from view. And the sign itself seemed parsimonious at best. On the other hand, maybe everyone who needed a vet knew where it was.
She sighed and started up the drive. She should have worn better shoes … well, more durable shoes than her Jack Rogers sandals. But she hadn’t thought she’d be anywhere but the yacht-club bar and the spa this week. Twice she had to stop to shake pebbles out of her sandal, and by the time she came to the end of the drive, her toes and ankles were covered in dust, which was odd since she had arrived two days ago in torrential rain.
She stepped into the clearing and stared up at the two-story wood-frame house. A little the worse for wear, with a wraparound porch that seemed to be used only for storing cardboard boxes and tarp-covered mystery items. A shame, because it was charming in a Maine country way.
There was no welcome sign, so she guessed the veterinary office was in one of the outbuildings set back from the house. She followed the clearing around the side of the house, past a woodpile higher than her head, several oil drums, and a chicken coop that looked deserted.
A stable barn was another two hundred feet farther on. A long annexed one-story building extended off to one side. It had a pedestrian door, so Diana walked up to it and turned the handle. It opened into a small room with seating along the perimeter and a desk along the back wall next to another door. The whole place looked deserted, but spotlessly clean. Not a magazine, not a brochure, not even a little bell to ring. Maybe the staff was at lunch.
She guessed the examining rooms were behind the door, but she wasn’t sure she should knock. Then again, how would they know she was here if she didn’t?
She knocked.
No one opened the door. She decided to look around outside. She might spot someone through the window.
Maybe he didn’t work on Saturdays. But wouldn’t that be his busiest day? Maybe he was still out riding. She’d wait awhile. And explore a little. She walked along the side of the building but didn’t see a sign of life, though she did hear some animal sounds coming from inside.
The door was ajar, so she stuck her head in. It wasn’t the stable proper but another large brightly lit room filled with cages and pens and various animals. The noise, she realized, had been coming from a pig and several piglets. There was something that might be a fox running up and down a dog run, and a cage with several perches, occupied by two bandaged really big birds. Vultures? Surely not. An eagle or a raptor. Whatever they were, they were big.
Not a vet in sight.
But she could hear someone on the other side of the wall. She slid the door open.
“Hello?” she called, sending off a chorus of animal responses that had her running into the next room in sheer fight-or-flight reaction.
It was a horse barn with stalls lining the right side along a wide center aisle. Five of the original eight or nine stalls had been refurbishe
d, with new frame-and-brace stable doors, hinged with shiny hardware. The ones farthest away were older, duller. Several more stalls and tack, feed, and utility rooms ran along the other side of the aisle.
A work in progress. Or better days on their way down. It was hard to tell. She was intrigued. Her horses were well cared for and pampered; boarded in pristine stables with state-of-the-art training facilities. A veritable equine country club.
But there was something about this barn that spoke to her, brought back her first days in the saddle—English riding saddle, jodhpurs, helmet. All the students attentive, well groomed, like their steeds, and eager to learn. Diana’s favorite moment was before all that began. When she would run out to the pasture, climb up on the old pump, and throw herself across Hopalong’s back and ride him back to the stable to be saddled and reined and put through his and her paces.
She passed down the center aisle, staying close to the stalls. Peered in the first one: fresh hay, no occupant. Nor in the second stall. She walked along, listening for a sound of human activity. Hay dust tickled her nose. Shafts of light fell diagonally from high windows, spotlighting the motes of dust that seemed to hover in the air, and that made the rest of the interior all the more dark and mysterious. She heard the scrape of metal somewhere in the barn.
A whinny came from the next stall, followed by a chestnut muzzle with a star down the front.
“Hello, beauty.” Diana ran her hand down the horse’s muzzle. He lifted his nose, rubbed it against her open palm.
Another nose appeared in the adjacent stall. This one a bay sprinkled with gray hairs. The horse looked curiously at her then lowered his head and returned to his old-age ruminations.
But two stalls down, the gray she’d seen along the crest of the beach was waiting for her. Head lifted, expecting attention. She walked on without looking his way. And was rewarded with an energetic push with his nose. It was strong enough to make her stagger forward.
She turned back to the culprit. “You’re a rogue, aren’t you?” She had reached forward to give him a healthy pat when a man strode down the aisle toward her.
“Can I help you?”
Diana turned slowly. He didn’t sound like he wanted to help her, but she would give him the benefit of the doubt.
He looked like he wanted to kill her. But God, was he handsome. Except for the scar down his cheek. His eyes were dark, deep; sunken as if he’d been pulling all-nighters. But what the hey. The rest of him wasn’t shabby. And besides, she just wanted a horse.
He stood facing her, intensity incarnate. Not someone to meet alone in a dark alley, but in a stable full of calm, well-cared-for horses? It worked for her.
“Actually, I came to see if you rented out horses.”
His eyes narrowed, dark eyebrows dipped toward the center of his nose. “No.”
“No?”
“No. I don’t.”
“For an hour or two?”
He did a slow pan from her face to her Jack Rogers sandals. Shook his head.
This was more than crusty old New Englander. Besides, he wasn’t old, she didn’t think; the phrase “old before his time” came to mind. Probably forty? Maybe not even. It was hard to tell behind that scowl.
“Hmm, Lillo said you gave lessons.”
“I do.”
“Then I’ll take a lesson.”
“Not in those clothes.”
Diana sighed. “Obviously not.”
His eyes narrowed even farther, until they were almost closed, and Diana wondered if maybe he was in pain. His hand reached out, not toward her but toward the gray, who stretched his neck to meet him, drawing the hand and the man closer until he leaned his forehead against the horse’s throat.
It was a moment so intimate that Diana was startled off her game and could only watch, voyeur to a silent communication that lasted only for a timeless moment before they broke apart and the man said:
“I don’t think so.”
“How about this? I’ll help you exercise your stable and I’ll pay you to let me do it.”
“There are other stables better equipped on the highway.”
“But I’m staying in Lighthouse Beach.”
“Where?”
Not much on social skills.
“At—”
“Lillo’s,” he finished for her.
“How did you know?”
He shrugged. “If you come back tomorrow morning in riding clothes, I’ll let you exercise one of the horses.”
She nodded, stepped away.
“If you pass muster.”
She saluted.
“You’ll have to do your own saddling and bridling.”
“No problem.”
“And muck out the stall.”
“Looking forward to it. How about eleven?”
“I have rounds.”
“Okay. Eleven thirty.” She did a military toe turn and marched out of the barn.
“If I don’t have any new patients,” he called after her.
“Aye, aye, capitaine.”
“Fifty bucks.”
She toodled her fingers at him and slipped out the door.
The walk back to the cottage was faster than the walk up, and Diana wasn’t quite sure if it was because she wanted to get away from Ian Lachlan or because she was anxious to buy jeans and come back.
Lillo, Allie, and Jess were just coming out of the cottage door when Lillo saw Diana walking down the road from Ian’s. She waved her over. “We left you a note. We’re going into town.”
“Good. I need riding clothes.” Diana added herself to the group. “I just had the most unusual encounter.” She recounted it to the others as they walked toward the two-block shopping district.
“Is that what he said? Riding clothes?” Lillo asked.
“First he said, ‘Not in those clothes’ … well, duh, and then he said ‘in riding clothes.’”
“I doubt if he meant jodhpurs and velvet hunting jacket. And he has helmets there. He said he’d take you riding?”
“Well, after much negotiation, we cut a deal. He said I could exercise the horses with him and muck out the stable, if I paid him.”
“Weird.” Lillo wondered if this was an attempt on Ian’s part to be sociable—unlikely. Humorous? Even more unlikely. Or to be nice to one of Lillo’s friends? That seemed just as unlikely.
“Another crusty New Englander?” Allie asked.
“Yeah, just like the doc, only this one was even more amazing looking than the crusty young physician. What? You only allow good-looking men in Lighthouse Beach?”
“I think you just met all two of them,” Lillo said. “Though actually we have some decent-looking guys, the ones who still have their teeth anyway.”
Allie’s mouth opened.
“Just kidding. You’ll get to meet the rest of the locals tomorrow night when Mac has her ‘gang bangah.’”
Allie’s mouth opened a little wider.
“It’s Mac’s little joke, because she holds a welcoming barbecue whenever the bikers come to town for the bikers and their host families.”
“So what is their deal, really?” asked Diana. “I don’t know many people who can take off months at a time and still hold down a job.”
“It changes. Whoever can get away and wants to go on a road trip. The only two steadies are Doc Hartley and Doc Clancy. Doc Clancy was Ned’s—Doc Hartley’s—mentor.”
“His name is Ned? That’s so old-fashioned,” Jess said.
“Don’t you remember him?” Lillo asked. “He used to help Doc Melville out at the clinic.”
Jess shook her head. “I just remember that beanpole—oh my God, that’s him?”
Lillo laughed. “Yep.”
“But doesn’t he have a practice somewhere?”
“He’s a staff surgeon in Portland. But he always takes the summer to travel up and down the coast with his band of merry men—and sometimes women.”
Diana raised a skeptical eyebrow. “He can hardly make a l
iving when everything is free.”
“That’s why he’s a staff surgeon. He works on a specific schedule and blocks out times for his travels. The hospital supports the project. Saves them from a lot of last-minute emergency surgeries if Ned can get to them before it’s an actual emergency.”
“Interesting people you have here. What’s Ian-who-didn’t-come-to-dinner-and-is-a-vet’s story?”
Lillo looked away. She and Ian were two broken souls and she certainly wouldn’t reveal either of their stories to the others. She shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him. I know he met Doc in college and years later he came to town and bought my parents’ house and settled down.”
“That was your house? The stables and the outbuildings?”
“Yep. I grew up there.”
“Huh. Wife? Kids?”
“What?” Lillo shook her head. “No, but, Diana, he doesn’t really …”
“Like women? Such a waste.”
“No, or actually, I don’t know. The subject never came up. It’s just that he isn’t very sociable. And he can be moody.”
“That sounds ominous,” Jess said. “Moody as in dangerous?”
“Oh no, at least I’ve never even seen him lose his temper. But he does get on with animals better than with people.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Now, where is Carroll’s Consignment Store?”
They passed a gift shop, a drugstore, an empty boarded-up store, then the grocery and liquor store they’d visited yesterday.
“Cute town,” Diana said. “And quaint, but deader than a doornail. What you need is a good publicist and several coats of paint, though maybe you’re not interested in tourists.”
“We have to be,” Lillo said. “Fishing has dried up, so to speak. But there’s nothing really to see but the old lighthouse, just like hundreds of other abandoned lighthouses along the eastern coast.”
They came to the end of the block and Lillo stopped to look both ways even though there wasn’t a car or truck in sight. Two doors later they came to Carroll’s Consignment.
Diana stopped them at the door.
“You’re having second thoughts?” Lillo asked.
“It’s a used-clothing store,” Diana said.
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