10
The only indication that the house Lucas drove up to was a cozy bed & breakfast was the decorative O Maria painted on her door when she first opened two summers ago.
There used to be a matching sign. That was gone now. Lucas pulled it out personally after what happened to her.
The way he looked at it, without a sign advertising the place, no outsider could find it and cause his sister any more trouble. He tried not to acknowledge the hypocrisy in the fact that he was actually driving one over himself.
With Caitlin breathing down his neck at the office earlier, he barely had any time to prepare Maria for the trouble he was bringing with him. His sister, always willing to help, agreed without any questions.
He was sure she had some now. Wonderful.
Maria was waiting for them at the front door. He could read the puzzlement in her friendly expression, the slight droop to her welcoming smile, the confusion that darkened her light blue eyes as he parked his car, then went around to open the passenger side door.
Tess thanked the doctor, but shook her head when he offered to help her climb out of the car. Ever since escaping the station house, she started to feel a little more awake, a little more like herself. The shock would fade while the grief overwhelmed. At least she was still breathing.
Before this, she never would’ve fallen apart the way she had at the hotel. Tess allowed herself some slack because of the very extreme circumstances, but it was beginning to bother her that everyone she encountered expected her to simply shatter. Tess was built much stronger than that.
She could get through this. She’d been through worse before and survived. All she had to do was get out of Hamlet in one piece and she’d be fine.
One step at a time.
The step that took her away from Lucas’s car brought her face to face with a Victorian-style house, a wall of red brick with a white decorative trim. She could see turrets and towers, and bay windows that reminded her of the one in the Hamlet Inn. It wasn’t as large as the inn had been, and it only had two floors rather than three, but, on the outside, it appeared as cozy and inviting.
Plus, it had a porch swing. She’d lived her entire life in apartment buildings. She would do anything to own a house with a porch swing.
A woman stood on the top step, her hands wrapped securely around the white railing that surrounded the porch. She waved when she saw them, though she made no move to meet them on the manicured lawn or the cobbled walkway that led to the porch steps.
Tess paused at the foot of the stairs. Lucas brushed her arm as he passed her, greeting the smiling woman with a crushing hug. It was the first true reaction she’d seen from him since they met in the hotel room. When he finished squeezing her, he placed one of his arms around her shoulders.
And, once again, Tess felt like the outsider.
Lucas nodded at her. “Tessa, I’d like you to introduce you to my sister. Maria, this is Tessa Sullivan.”
Even without the introduction, Tess would’ve thought she was related to the doctor. Her long hair, hanging straight and shiny to the middle of her back, was the same dark shade. A fringe of bangs fell into a pair of eyes that were just as stunning, even if there was a warmth that kept them from seeming as arctic and remote as Lucas’s own peepers. Maria was tall and willowy; standing side-by-side with her brother, she could see there was barely an inch difference in their height.
“Nice to meet you—” A small pause. “—Miss Sullivan.”
Maria's throaty voice was more heavily accented than her brother’s. It carried the lilt of Italian, and a hint of a question.
A pang shot right through Tess. Her stomach dropped. She knew she had to correct the other woman. “It’s Mrs. Sullivan, actually.”
“Of course. And your husband will be joining us, yes?”
The assumption was innocent enough. How could Maria know? That didn’t stop Tess from letting out a short gasp, her breath catching in her throat.
Would her husband be joining her? No. He wouldn’t. Never again.
“I… oh, God.” She wrapped her arms around her middle, desperate to hold herself together. Everything was spinning. She backed away from the front porch, her steps unsteady as she shook her head. “No… no.”
Ever a doctor, Lucas’s instincts went on red alert. Leaving Maria behind on the porch, her brother hurried over to Tessa, jumping down the three steps in one leap. The way the outsider woman had gone pale so quickly must have worried him. Moving behind her, he placed his hands on her upper arms, steadying her while, at the same time, keeping her from continuing her quick retreat.
“Take a deep breath,” he instructed. “In and out, ‘atta girl. You’ll be fine.”
“Luc? Sta bene?” Maria had a habit of breaking into Italian when she panicked or was unsure. She rubbed her throat, then started for the steps, though she didn’t leave the porch. “What’s wrong?”
When Tessa shuddered out another breath, her color returning, he reluctantly stepped away from her. Turning to his sister, he said, “Maria, do you think we can show Tessa her room? And then I’d like to see you in the kitchen. There are a few things we have to discuss.”
She looked from Lucas to the shaky outsider, her curiosity a tangible thing. But she didn’t question her brother’s request. After taking a moment to compose herself, she nodded. “Come with me. I turned down the bed in the Lavender Room.” She smiled indulgently in Tessa’s direction. “I’m sure you’ll love it.”
Lucas leaned down to whisper something to the outsider. She shook her head. He offered her his arm. She refused it. As Tessa gained some of her composure back, she dropped her trembling hands to her side, moving further away from him. Lucas let her go but, as she started toward the front steps, he followed barely an arm’s length behind her.
Maria watched the scene in avid interest. She only realized she’d been caught staring when Lucas, a touch of annoyance to his tone, said, “Maria? Which room is the Lavender Room?”
“Oh. Sorry. It’s right this way.”
Lucas reached to take Tessa’s elbow, pulling his hand back before he made contact. A muffled mmm ripped his attention from Tessa as she carefully climbed up the porch and slipped inside of Ophelia. A quick glance his sister’s way told him that she’d seen everything and already made her own assumptions.
He bit back his scowl.
“She’s pretty,” Maria noted as the two of them walked into the kitchen. Having set the outsider up in the Lavender Room—one of her biggest, but also the furthest from the center of Ophelia—she didn’t bother to keep her voice down.
“And you’re fishing,” Lucas told her. There was no heat in his accusation because, well, he’d been expecting this ever since he heard Maria’s mmm. He could hide a lot from everyone else, including his ex, but not his sister. “Besides, she’s married.” He hesitated, then realized that he’d have to tell Maria the truth eventually. “Or she was. Her husband’s one of mine now.”
A spark of recognition lit up her pale eyes. “Wait... that’s her? The outsider whose husband was found throttled in Bonnie’s inn?”
“How did you— no. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
Ever since her attack, Maria rarely left the house she’d spent years painstakingly turning into a bed and breakfast. She had a radio—Lucas insisted on it—so it wasn’t unusual for her to be involved in Hamlet’s gossip mill. He just never expected her to learn about Sullivan’s murder so quickly. The last thing he wanted was for Maria to have a setback because another outsider had died in Hamlet.
Lucas gave her a quick once-over, taking her in with his practiced doctor’s eye. His younger sister actually seemed excited at the news. Since Sullivan’s murder meant that she had Tessa Sullivan as her first guest in more than a year, he guessed she was allowed a little excitement.
It was his fault, too. He’d point blank refused to allow her to open Ophelia’s doors after what Turner put her through. And, there he was, insisting that s
he look after this new outsider. He had to. Otherwise, Tessa would be staying with Deputy Walsh and, well, that was just not going to happen.
Reaching out, he gave Maria a one-armed squeeze. “Thanks for doing this for me. You sure you don’t mind?”
“Not at all, Luc. It gets lonely here in this big house. You don’t stay hardly enough—”
Lucas snorted. Drawing his arm back, he moved around Maria, opening the cabinet above the rangehood. He took out a half-eaten box of cookies and shook it. “If I stayed here instead of at my place, you’d have to find a better hiding spot.”
Maria watched as Lucas opened the box and grabbed a handful of cookies. She held out her hand. He obediently placed two cookies against her waiting palm. “You’re lucky I love you enough to share my cookies.”
Because his mouth was stuffed, he only managed a nod in response. Lucas tried to blow her a kiss, spraying chewed up cookie crumbs on his shirt.
She kept a stack of napkins on the small two-seater table in the kitchen. “Here,” she said, handing him one. As Lucas knocked the crumbs to the floor—and she made a mental note to mop later—Maria brought the conversation back to Tessa Sullivan. “Tell me about the outsider. You only said to get one room ready, nothing else. How long will she be here?”
His hand clenched reflexively, his dirty napkin crumpling in his fist. “I’m not sure. Caity wants her to stick around. No surprise, she didn’t want to stay at the inn after what happened to her husband—no,” he said, cutting her off as she began to ask. “I won’t tell you what happened to him so don’t even start.”
“You’re no fun.”
Older brothers rarely were. He gave her another one of her cookies as a peace offering. Then he grabbed two more to munch on himself. “I don’t want you to worry, Maria. Caity might disregard it, but this Tessa, she has an alibi. She’s just another victim. I wouldn’t bring her here if I thought there was any danger in it. Trust me.”
“I’m not worried. Honest,” she insisted when her brother’s skeptical expression judged her without a word. “Besides, she’s such a small thing. I could break her in half if I had to. I don’t have to be afraid that she’ll— never mind that.”
“Turner should’ve suffered more for what he did to you,” Lucas muttered darkly.
“Tried to do. I fought him off, didn’t I?”
That didn’t make him feel any better. “That won’t ever happen again.”
“Of course not, Luc. You made sure of it.”
Lucas froze, the last of the cookies halfway to his mouth. “I did? How?”
“The locks,” Maria reminded him.
He thought about that, chewed on his cookie, nodded. “You’re right. Those locks were worth every penny I paid that outsider to install them. He ripped me off royally, but it was still worth it. Hey, you got some milk?”
“In the fridge. Cups are—”
“I know where they are. I’ll pour us each a glass. You take a seat.”
Though she immediately grabbed one of the two chairs, pulling it out in order to sit down at the table, Maria couldn’t keep back her protest.
“I have a guest, Lucas. I have to check on her, and start supper, and make sure she has everything she needs. If I’m starting over with Ophelia, everything has to be perfect. She’s an outsider. What if she tells her friends about my place? I could rent out the rest of the rooms, run my B&B again. This is what I’ve been waiting for.”
Lucas let his sister’s voice wash over him as he poured out the milk and brought the two glasses over to the table. She had a point. Though she never made any indication that Hamlet was too small for her, he knew that Maria’s dream was to run her successful boarding house. She loved her community and wanted to share it with the world.
It was Maria’s one downfall that she actually welcomed outsiders—apart from having a sudden desire to keep Deputy Walsh away from Tessa, he knew that Ophelia was probably the best place for her to stay. No one else in Hamlet would treat her as graciously as Maria De Angelis.
The vulnerable Tessa needed security. The lonely Maria needed guests, yes, but Lucas knew she also needed a friend.
He put one glass in front of his sister. “Drink your milk.”
Maria stuck her tongue out at him. It didn’t matter that they were both adults. When Lucas got high-handed with her, Maria couldn’t help but act like a toddler. One stern look later and she was sipping at her milk. She’d learned years ago not to argue with her brother when he got like this.
Lucas sat down opposite her, draining his glass in three large gulps. If Maria felt coddled, he at least was content. Nothing like milk and cookies and the bone-deep assuredness that his loved ones were safe to make a man feel at peace. Sure, there was a murderer loose in Hamlet—as Caitlin pointed out in the hotel room—but behind the best locks money could buy, he could provide protection.
But he also knew that Maria’s kind heart and touch of naivety could render the best security measures unreliable. Look at what happened with Mack Turner. He refused to allow anything like that to happen again.
“Just because you have a guest here, I want you to still be careful. And I don’t mean just the locks, Maria. There’s no reason to let anyone else in Ophelia right now. Do you still have that paper for the front window? If you do, please use it.”
Lucas had printed a sign that read NO VACANCIES right after Turner abruptly checked out of Ophelia. In case anyone tried to rent a room at the bed and breakfast, that one sheet would turn them away. She never really needed it. Word traveled so quickly in Hamlet, everyone knew about what that damn outsider pulled. If he hadn’t gotten into that accident on the way out of town, some of her neighbors would’ve caught up to him eventually. Either way, when Lucas decided Ophelia was closed, that was it. No one even tried to rent a room.
Not until Lucas brought this outsider to her home.
She knew her brother, knew how he cared for those he considered his. By bringing Tessa Sullivan into Maria’s B&B, he was wordlessly promising to watch out for the shaken widow. Maria wondered if the grief-stricken woman realized it.
Tapping her nails against the half-empty milk glass, Maria thought about how pale Tessa was, how they’d left her sitting on the lavender bed, staring blankly at the room around her. From her buzz earlier, she knew that someone had strangled the woman's husband. It couldn’t have been Tessa—Lucas had to be sure of her innocence or there was no way in hell he would’ve brought her to Ophelia to hide out.
Which begged a very interesting question.
“Luc, do you think she’s in trouble?”
It wasn’t so far of a leap. A married couple of outsiders find their way into Hamlet only for one of them to wind up dead a few hours later. What did that mean for the survivor?
Lucas shrugged, though the way his lips thinned revealed him to be more concerned than he let on. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not taking any chances. I already have one body in my freezer. I don’t want another one.”
11
Tess wasn’t sure how much time passed between Lucas and Maria shuffling her into the room and when she heard the gentle knock muffled against the thick wooden door.
The whisper of a never-ending tick-tock-tick-tock told her there was a clock somewhere nearby. She didn’t bother searching for it. Until someone told her she could get the hell out of Hamlet, time didn’t mean anything to her. If she started measuring at all, it would be in the minutes, the hours since she found Jack.
Jack.
She shoved the pain aside. Lying curled up in a ball, she found she didn’t have the strength or the desire to go answer the door. So she didn’t.
“Mrs. Sullivan?”
Tess felt the punch straight to her gut.
“Are you awake? I’ve brought supper.”
She hadn’t had anything since the rest stop yesterday afternoon. The idea of eating turned her stomach. Her shaky hands and lightheadedness told her not to be stupid, though. No matter what, Jack would’ve ha
ted to know that she was taking such bad care of herself. Grief was one thing. Guilt another. But she wasn’t dead. She had to remember that—and start acting like it.
So though she would have much rather closed her eyes and pretend to be asleep, she called out a reply. “The door’s unlocked.”
The rattle of the doorknob was followed by the clanking of cutlery. Maria bumped the door in with her hip, struggling to right the tray she held out in front of her with both hands. She listed to one direction, taking careful steps not to slosh the glass of water or spill the heavy plate of food she carried.
Tess immediately started to rise. “I’m sorry. I should’ve—”
“No, no, no. You’re my guest. Stay there, stay comfortable. I’ve got this.”
It didn’t matter that Maria told her to stay put. Tess’s first instinct was to jump up and help and while she still wanted to, she also didn’t want to insult her hostess. Moving so that she was on the edge of the bed, she readied her body to move quickly in case it looked like Maria was going to stumble and drop the tray.
And then she saw the familiar grey strap crossing Maria’s body and understood exactly why the other woman was having a hard time managing her tray. Tess’s bag had to weigh at least thirty pounds.
“My luggage!” At the sight of the grey and pink oversized, overstuffed duffel bag slung over Maria’s slender frame, she felt her heart lighten for the first time since she left home. She didn’t realize how little she had until something that was hers before was right in front of her, back in her possession. Tess only just resisted the urge to reach out and snatch it off of Maria’s arm. “Oh my god, thank you. I never thought to ask for it.”
Maria placed her tray down on the nightstand beside the bed. “Don’t thank me. Deputy Walsh dropped it by. He wanted to make sure you were doing fine.”
“Oh.” Some of her happiness died away at Maria’s admission. She vaguely remembered that the deputy said he’d bring her her luggage. Checking up on her so soon, though? Tess wasn’t sure what to make of that. “How… nice of him.”
Don't Trust Me Page 10
