“The game was at Dakota’s house tonight.” Mia added two glasses of iced tea to the table.
Between her sister’s wedding and visits to town since Mia moved there, she’d met several of Mia and Sean’s friends. Dakota she’d only been around perhaps half a dozen times, yet she had no trouble recalling the man in question. By Hollywood’s current standards, he’d be just another average Joe. He didn’t possess the look needed to land the leading role in a summer blockbuster or appear on the cover of every magazine out there.
But he had a killer smile.
When Sean introduced her to Dakota and he’d smiled at her, it’d taken her a second or two longer than necessary to form a proper response—an experience she couldn’t recall happening since she’d been fifteen and met Christian Peck, who’d been costarring in a movie with Mia. Even when she’d run into Dakota briefly while looking at houses one afternoon, and he’d offered up a smile and a greeting, she’d found herself off-kilter.
Mia set a dish down in front of her. The mere aroma made Angie’s mouth water.
“Do you want me to hold her while you eat?”
Angie glanced at the steaming dish and then at her niece. “No, but it’s probably a good idea.” She handed over Natalie and then picked up her fork. Even though Maureen had been giving her sister cooking lessons for a while now, Angie took only a small forkful of food. A mixture of shrimp, clams, scallops, and a few other flavors she couldn’t put her finger on melted in her mouth. “Wow, this is good. I’m impressed.”
“My mother-in-law is a good teacher. You should have tasted the homemade pasta sauce I made right before Natalie was born. It was almost as good as the one Gram makes.”
While Mia filled her in on some of the other recipes she’d conquered thanks to her mother-in-law’s cooking lessons, Angie listened and ate. In truth, her mind kept wandering away from her sister’s new skills in the kitchen and to a certain North Salem resident whose smile was capable of leaving most women temporarily speechless.
“Is Dakota a permanent part of the poker group?” Sometime last winter Mia mentioned Dakota had joined them for a game. If he was the host of tonight’s little get-together, maybe he had become a regular participant.
With a nod, Mia repositioned Natalie and then reached for her glass of iced tea. “I don’t think he’s missed one since March.”
“When is it going to be your turn to host again?”
“Probably not until sometime in the fall.”
Waiting until the fall to see if Dakota’s smile still managed to momentarily clear her head of all thoughts didn’t work for her.
“Why? Do you want to come?”
“As long as no one else will mind.” And while she waited for the next poker game at Sean and Mia’s house, she’d keep her eyes peeled for Dakota and his mind-clearing smile.
Chapter Two
Mia handed Angie a coffee mug before setting one down on the table for Sean, who’d taken Natalie upstairs to change her diaper. “What time is the furniture being delivered?”
Thanks to the internet, she’d been able to order furniture and schedule its delivery last week, even though she’d been on the other side of the country until yesterday. She really didn’t know how people managed before they invented the internet and online shopping. Despite a strong desire to order enough furniture to fill the house, she’d purchased only the absolute minimum since they hadn’t started the renovations she wanted.
“They said between ten and one.”
“Are you positive you don’t want to stay with us? Living in a house while it’s being renovated can be a huge headache. We’ve got the room, and Sean doesn’t mind.”
Although Sean had done most of the renovations on the home before Mia moved in, she’d been around when he started.
“I think I’ll be okay. But if it starts to get to me, I’ll let you know.”
“Do you know when they’re going to start the work?”
Angie pulled a poppy seed bagel out of the package and covered it with cream cheese before adding it to her plate. Most mornings she ended up with one of those meal replacement shakes Jillian, her personal trainer and nutritionist, insisted upon. The woman wasn’t here, and Angie didn’t plan on seeing her in the near future, so today she’d enjoy all the cream cheese and carbs she wanted.
“Not a clue. Later today I’m meeting with Gregg so we can review his most recent designs.”
She’d hired Ducat and Wakefield Designers, an interior design firm out of Boston, because they were supposedly the best around. So far Gregg, the interior designer assigned to the project, had not produced a single design she liked despite the numerous phone calls and emails they’d exchanged.
“What was wrong with the last ones?”
Angie cut into the omelet her sister had prepared and considered the question. Overall, the designs Gregg emailed her had been gorgeous, worthy of any interior design magazine or website. But they hadn’t been right for a house built in 1820, or her for that matter. Or at least not the present her. Two or three years ago, when she’d been remodeling her first house, she would’ve approved them with only a few minor changes.
“They were too modern for the house. And they were, I don’t know, cold maybe. If I’d approved them, the place would’ve had the same feel as my house in Los Angeles.”
“I’m a little confused. Didn’t you have the house redone after you bought it?”
She nodded. “Those designs fit the overall style of the house, and for the most part, I liked them. But even when it was being finished, there were a few details Mom strongly influenced. Actually, I’m thinking about selling it and maybe building something new if I go back to California.”
Mia’s hand paused on the way to her coffee mug. “If you go back? Are you thinking about staying in North Salem permanently?”
Hope resonated in her sister’s voice. Only about two years apart in age, they’d always been close. When they’d both lived on the West Coast, they’d spent much of their free time together, doing everything from exercising to shopping. It’d been a difficult adjustment when Mia moved back to New England to be with Sean. And as much as Angie adored her brother-in-law, in the beginning she’d resented him a little for the distance separating her and Mia.
“Maybe. I haven’t decided, but I’m leaning in that direction. Mom and Avery keep hopping on the fact that I’m thinking about not returning to Los Angeles. They think I should visit for a month or so, get North Salem out of my system, and come home. I never should’ve mentioned to either of them that I was even considering a permanent move. You know how they get.”
“How who gets?” Sean once again joined them in the kitchen.
A move wasn’t the only thing she was leaning toward. She’d discuss those thoughts with Mia when they were alone, because there were a few questions she wanted to ask her sister—questions she didn’t want to ask in front of Sean, such as whether or not Mia ever regretted giving up her acting career. Nothing Mia ever said or did gave her any reason to think she regretted leaving Hollywood behind, but that didn’t mean she didn’t from time to time.
Mia took Natalie from Sean so he could get started on his breakfast. “Mom and Avery.”
The muscle in Sean’s jaw twitched, but otherwise he didn’t comment. Instead, he sat and reached for his fork. “You’re welcome to stay with us while they work on the house.”
“Already offered, and she refused.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be here so much to see Natalie it’ll be like I’m living here anyway.”
Leaving Natalie after breakfast was no easy task. She’d already missed the first several weeks of the little girl’s life and didn’t want to miss any more. Mia’s invitation to come back and join them later for dinner helped her finally get out the door.
Rather than take the most direct route from her sister’s house to Grove Street, she drove down by the Stonefield Dam, a part of town she hadn’t explored yet, and the park the town had set up foll
owing a hurricane a few years earlier. Mia had mentioned a bike trail started in the park and continued into Marblehead. Although she’d never walked the entire thing, Mia said she sometimes took Natalie for a walk along part of the trail in her stroller. Before winter rolled in, Angie wanted to take a bike ride along it. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d sat on a bike that wasn’t inside a gym. Of course, that meant she’d have to first buy a bicycle. Thanks to her computer, she could do that without leaving her house.
When Angie stepped out of her car, puddles filled the driveway from the previous night’s rainstorm. She avoided the small moat that had formed in the front walkway by walking over the soggy lawn instead. Unlike the house, which the previous owners had kept in excellent condition—even if it was outdated—the driveway and front walkway were a disaster. Both sagged in some areas, collecting rain, and there were entire sections missing. But next week both the walkway and the driveway were being replaced, and her makeshift moat would be a thing of the past.
Once around the water, she stepped back on the path and paused to look at the structure. The day she checked out the place, it had called to her. Even before she examined a single room, she’d known this was the house she’d been looking for.
Unlike the other homes on the street, hers was built almost entirely of brick. Four large chimneys extended toward the sky, and the front door was positioned in the center of the first floor. A portico held up by two large white pillars extended over the front steps, and a fan-shaped window over the door along with two glass window panels allowed sunlight into the front foyer and hall. Attached to the front of the home was a national registry plaque stating the year the home was built and by whom. She hadn’t looked into it, but she suspected this was among the oldest homes still being used in town.
Unlocking the front door, Angie stepped into the front foyer. An unexpected sense of excitement stopped her short. She had no idea why, but she felt as if she was about to start on something new and exhilarating. Although not exactly the same, the sensation was similar to what she used to experience when she started work on a new movie.
Back in June, when she’d gone through the house, a runner had covered the stairs leading up to the second floor. With it gone, the wear and tear of almost two centuries of footsteps was clear to see. Who had gone up and down the stairs? Had the original owner been a prominent politician in Massachusetts, or had he been a successful merchant? What about children? How many children had run up and down the stairs? For perhaps the first time, Angie understood why her sister loved history so much.
She hadn’t been inside since the day she put in the offer on the house. Mia, to whom she’d given power of attorney, had done the final walk-through with the real estate agent before signing the necessary paperwork the day of the closing. She’d also brought the interior designer through the house so he could take measurements and see what he was starting with.
This morning, Angie was eager to see the entire home again. The room on her right seemed as good a place to start as any.
A large fireplace, just one of many in the house, took up much of one wall. Built-in bookcases flanked it on either side, but otherwise the room was empty, making it appear much larger than she remembered. Slightly faded period-appropriate wallpaper covered the walls. One of the previous owners, an attorney, had used the room as a home office. Since she had no need of an office, she imagined turning this room into a small library. She could picture herself curled up near the fireplace, reading a book while it snowed outside.
Slowly she made her way through each of the other rooms on the first floor. Rather than fill the house with twenty-first-century furniture, the previous owners had decorated the rooms with antique pieces. With all of it gone, it was easy to spot the various minor repairs the house needed, not that it really surprised her. The house was almost two hundred years old.
Unlike in many of the other rooms, there was no wallpaper covering the walls in the kitchen. Judging by the cabinets and countertops, someone had remodeled the room in the early 1980s. The walls were a bright cheery yellow that seemed out of place in the home because everywhere else, the owners had used colors more in line with those found in the early nineteenth century.
At some point, the entire room would need to be gutted and redone, but it wasn’t number one on her list of priorities. The master bath needed updating first. She could live with an old stove and dated cabinets, but she needed a shower; the house only had bathtubs, and she wanted her Jacuzzi.
A narrower and less decorative staircase led from the kitchen to the second floor. She knew enough about older homes to know the staff of the original owners of the house would have used this staircase
Much like most of the rooms on the first floor, all the bedrooms contained fireplaces, and they were all functional according to the listing agent. While she might use some of the ones downstairs—the idea of a fire burning on a cold winter night was appealing—she wasn’t sure she’d ever use the ones on the second floor, since it would mean she’d have to lug wood upstairs. When she met with Gregg today, she wanted to ask him about the possibility of having a gas insert added to at least the fireplace in the master bedroom—an idea that hadn’t occurred to her until Sean mentioned it last night.
Upstairs, Angie entered the second largest of the four bedrooms. Narrow built-in bookcases flanked both sides of the fireplace in the room; however, the builders had added none to the other bedrooms. Although empty now, when she was here in June, the room had contained a large canopy bed complete with bed curtains. The curtains, which still hung over the windows, had matched those on the bed. Maybe she should’ve asked the previous owners if they wanted to sell the bed rather than move it. It had fit the room perfectly.
“Too late now.”
Turning away toward the doorway, she was about to walk out when she noticed one of the bookcases stood out a bit.
“It’s your imagination. Built-in bookcases don’t move. It’s probably a shadow.”
Despite her one-sided argument, she walked closer to the fireplace. No question about it, the bookcase to the right of the mantel was no longer flush against the wall like its counterpart to the left.
Maybe she was wrong and these weren’t built in like the ones downstairs. Grabbing one of the empty shelves with two hands, she gently pulled, expecting to find a nice flat wall behind the piece of furniture. Instead she found a ladder leading up. She didn’t stop to think before she climbed it.
Angie found herself in a windowless room that had to be in the attic. The ceiling was low, almost too low for her to stand up straight, and she doubted she’d be able to stretch out completely on the floor.
Pulling her cell phone out of her pocket, she hit Mia’s contact information. When her sister answered, she didn’t give her a chance to even say hello. “Can you come over?”
She wasn’t as big a history buff as her sister, although she enjoyed learning about it a great deal, but her instincts were telling her the hidden passage she’d just uncovered had been part of the Underground Railroad. If anyone would want to see the room, it was Mia.
“We’re on our way to see Sean’s dad and sister, but if it’s an emergency, we can turn around.”
“No emergency.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. I just wanted to show you something I found. I’ll tell you about it tonight.”
***
Dakota flipped the switch on the wall and, as he expected, nothing happened. The night before, he’d met some friends in Boston for the baseball game against Baltimore, followed by a drink and a late-night snack at a nearby Irish pub. When he’d walked out of the pub, torrential rain greeted him. The weather had been so bad it had forced him to pull over on the highway because visibility was so poor. Heavy winds as well as thunder and lightning entered the party while he’d waited for visibility to improve enough to continue. Once home, he’d managed to pull into his garage and close the garage door before the power went out.
<
br /> Power outages in town weren’t uncommon, especially in the winter when snowstorms hit. Both Sean and Mack had recommended he invest in a generator for such occasions. Although it was on his wish list, he hadn’t gotten around to having the house wired for one yet. Right now he was kicking himself for that, because no power meant no coffee unless he drove over to Peggy Sue’s. Even worse, it meant no running water because, like many of the homes in town, his house used well water, and no power meant the pump on the well didn’t work.
Thanks to the emergency release, Dakota got his car out of the garage. Once in the driveway, he got a better look at the damage the storm had caused. Tree limbs and leaves covered his yard as well as his neighbors’ yards. One particularly large limb had come off the maple near the side of his house. Thankfully, instead of going through the window, it was leaning against it. Later, it and the other limbs and branches would need to be taken care of.
Unlike the tree near his house, which had only lost a few limbs and some branches, the maple in front of Mack’s house had come down completely. It was a good thing Mack’s neighbor was never there, because the tree was now blocking the driveway, making it impossible for anyone to drive in or out. On his way home, he’d stop and see if Mack wanted help getting rid of the thing.
Judging by the full parking lot and the line of customers inside, everyone in town had headed to Peggy Sue’s this morning for something hot to drink before they tackled the mess left behind by the storm. Despite the extra customers, the employees kept the line moving quickly, and Dakota didn’t wait much longer than usual for his extra-large coffee and a cinnamon roll.
With every table and booth occupied, he headed back toward the entrance. He could drink his coffee and eat as easily in his car as he could in here.
When Love Strikes Page 3
